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Comments. OpinionA Growing Concern: As new products enter the building industry atan ever-accelerating rate, the proper dissemination of informationabout their uses, and existing onesas well, takes on serious implications. A significant aspect of all thisis found in recent court decisionswhich have placed the responsibility for the selection and applicationof materials primarily on the architects' shoulders.Meeting the Need: The Institute,through its committee structure, isstepping up its activities in programs and procedures concerningproduct use and development, andis maintaining a more profitableliaison with all segments of the industry.One such activity is the production of a comprehensive designmanual for roof systems, expectedto be off the press in early 1968.Leonard Haeger, AIA, is preparingthe manuscript under the guidanceof a five-man editorial board, withthe roofing industry lending bothfinancial and technical support tothe project.A Working Tool: Another exampleis the recently issued "Policy Statement on Buil.ding Product Develop-

ment and Uses." In the words of

one architect, "it is great, simple,clear and direct to a vital point."The statement is available free ofcharge as a three-hole punchedsheet, printed front and back (seeArchitects Information Servicecard). However, some of the pointsmade in one of the three sectionsmight well be repeated here. Thefollowing excerpts are from theportion entitled "Obligations of theParties":ManufacturerThe manufacturer should supply the architect withall essential data concerning hisproduct . . .Particularly important is information on the product's compatiGeneral Articles49DepartmentsUnfinished BusinessBooksInformation Card

1446108120122109

CoverA catalog of urban scenes.

A I A J O U R N A L / A P R I L 1967

bility and interfitting with interrelated products . . .

The manufacturer is expected tosupply pertinent data concerningthe compatibility, physical relationship and maintenance of his product. . . . Whenever the manufacturerhas specific knowledge of an improper use of his product, he shouldfurnish such information in writingto the architect . . .The manufacturer is expected torecognize that he is responsible forthe failure of his product to perform in accordance with writtendata supplied by him or his authorized representatives . . .When a product has been installed in accordance with the manufacturer's written instructions andwritten recommendations, and suchproduct fails, then the manufacturer has the responsibility therefor.ArchitectThe

architect is re-

sponsible for proper design. He is

expected to inf orm himself with respect to the properties of the products he specifies. . . . He is furtherresponsible f o r uses contrary tosupplementary written informationon proper use and installation procedures of the manufacturer.The architect's use of a productand its installation should extend toits compatibility with and relationship to adjacent materials and assemblies, notwithstanding the manufacturer's similar obligations.ContractorIt

is the responsibil-

ity of the contractor to inform himself concerning the application of

the products he uses and to followthe directions of the architect andmanufacturer.If the contractor has knowledgeof or reason to believe the likelihood of failure, he is expected totransmit such knowledge to the architect and ask for written instructions before proceeding with thework.OwnerIt is assumed that theowner or other person responsiblefor operation and maintenance ofthe project will properly maintainthe material and equipment in accordance with manufacturer's recommendations.Continued Next Month: Thus endsthe excerpts from the policy statement. But we will have more to sayon the overall subject in May as welook at "The New Producer," exemplified in the Building Products Exhibit at the forthcoming A I A convention in New York City, and atthe industry's attempts to upgradeits advertising and product literature, as was evident at the recentconference. ROBERT E. KOEHLER6

If the future ofyour business dependsupon trends in housing,we've got thenext eight years of itin this report.It's called Projectron. Another Barrettservice system.Remember it. There is no other housingstudy like it.It's a completely new way to project housing needs, using computers. No equally comprehensive city-by-city analysis exists.Projectron forecasts the number of newhomes needed, the number of new apartmentsneeded, the number of new condominiumsneeded by price range and rent range, from nowthrough 1975 for any oneof 161 cities east of theRockies.Think what you could do with that information.I f you were a builder, and could use it as aninternal guide to buying land, selecting target

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A I A J O U R N A L / A P R I L 1967

The poshAtlas Valley Country Club,Grand Blanc, Michigan

The place:

Mr. O. F. KnstBoard Member,Atlas Valley Country Club.

The man:

The carpets:

Bigelows.

Handsome Bigelows were installed extensively

throughout this plush Club. A special feature is thestriking use of carpet on the ceilings.

Why do people like O. F. Krist ask for Bigelow? problem-at no charge. Simply call your nearestBecause they know for every hospital, hotel, motel, Bigelow sales office. Or for a colorful, free brobank or other commercial building, Bigelow has or chure on commercial carpets, write Dept. A , 140can custom-create the perfect carpet. We've done Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Findit since 1825. Our carpet counselors will give you out for yourself whyall the help you need in solving any kind of carpet

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. . . and the first tenant hasn't even

more than just telephones. They'll

probably use Data-Phone* service, teletypewriter, Tele-Lecture, even closedcircuit TV. Make your building trulymodern by allowing for these servicesin the blueprints. Avoid expensiveService mark ol the Ball System

alterations and unsightly wiring later.

NewslinesBest Turnout in HistorySeen for Convention;Lindsay Among SpeakersThe 1967 convention of TheAmerican Institute of Architectsis expected to enjoy the largestattendance of any convention inA I A history. Attendance of between 4,000 and 4,500 is anticipated.Expectations for the huge turnout are based on the level of interest expressed in business sessionsand the program and the New Yorklocation. The May 14-18 convention, headquartered in the NewYork Hilton, will be the AIA's 99th."The New Architect" is thetheme, and four leaders in education, architectural practice, cityarchitecture and technology w i l ldeliver afternoon lectures that w i l lbe followed by workshop sessions.They include New York MayorJohn V. Lindsay who w i l l discuss"Design" using Manhattan as acase study.Dr. Harold Taylor, educator andauthor, w i l l talk on "Education andthe Future of the Architectural Profession." Charles Luckman, FAIA,w i l l discuss "Architectural Practice," and the final seminar presentation w i l l be made Thursday w i t hArthur C. Clarke, astronomer, science fiction writer, lecturer and i n ventor, talking on "Technology."

Lindsay

Luckman

Taylor

Clarke

The Purves Memorial Lecture

w i l l be delivered by Dr. MarshallMcLuhan, author and theorist.Among honors to be conferredare the Architectural Firm Award,to the office of Hugh Stubbins &14

A I A J A U R N A L / A P R I L 1967

Associates of Cambridge, Mass.,

and the Institute's Citation of anOrganization, to the Boston Architectural Center.Awards for distinguishedachievement w i l l be given Costantino Nivola, New York, Fine ArtsMedal; Ivan Chermayeff, New York,Industrial Arts Medal; William C.Hedrich, Chicago, ArchitecturalPhotography Medal; Sister MaryRemy Revor, Milwaukee, Craftsmanship Medal; and Richard Kelly,NewYork, Allied ProfessionsMedal.Leon Chatelain Jr., FAIA, a pastpresident of the Institute, w i l l receive the 1966 F. Stuart FitzpatrickMemorial Award. Established in1960 but not given the past twoyears, the award is presented foroutstanding national achievementin the unification of the buildingindustry. Chatelain, of Washington, D. C, has been a recognizedleader of the industry for morethan 15 years.Six men who have rendered "distinguished service to the professionof architecture or to the arts andsciences allied therewith" w i l l receive honorary memberships in theInstitute. They are:Joseph F. Addonizio, executivedirector of the New York StateAssociation of Architects A I A ;John D. Entenza, editor, publisherand currently executive director ofthe Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts;James V. Fenelon, executive director of the Minnesota Society ofArchitects A I A ; John Erik Jonsson,honorary chairman of the board ofTexas Instruments, Inc.; EdgarKaufmann Jr., author and educator;and Benton M . Spruance, lithographer, painter and teacher.Jonsson is a director of manyfirms and a former mayor of Dallas.He has been a sales executive forthe Aluminum Company of America and in 1964 received the American Society of Metals' Advancement of Research Award. He wasselected as Industrialist of the Yearby the Society of Industrial Realtors the following year, and lastyear won the Bene Merenti Medal.Kaufmann, author of five bookson Frank Lloyd Wright and adjunctprofessor of architecture at Columbia University, comes from thePittsburgh family which commissioned Wright to design the Fallingwater house.

Spruance is a pioneer in color

lithography whose works areamong the collections of a numberof art museums.

i f .

Stubbing

Nivola

Chermayeff

Hedrich

Sister Mary Remy Revor

Kelly

Chatelain

Among other features of the convention is the Institute's 17th Building Products Exhibit in which 120building product manufacturers,occupying 175 booths, will presentdisplays that are said to include anumber of new developments.The convention gets underwaySunday, the 14th, with the openingof the products exhibit, registration, tours, meetings and otherevents. Monday morning's inaugural session will include the Purveslecture.The reception for Institute PresiContinued on page 21

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19

FT

Ii

N e w s l i n e s from page 14

L C Nfor modern door control

dent Charles M. Nes Jr., FAIA, will

take place Monday night at theMetropolitan Museum of Art.Tuesday night Host Chapter activitiesthe New York ChapterAIA this year is observing its 1 0 0 t hanniversaryinclude architects athome or at-office parties and a boattour.

A Host Chapter party will be

held Wednesday night at LincolnCenter, and on Thursday night theAnnual Dinner and Ball will be heldin the Hilton. This event includesthe investiture of new Fellows andthe presentation of the AIA's highest award, the Gold Medal, to Wallace K. Harrison, FAIA.Students will hold seminars, mixers and social events including aBowery party on Friday night.Also to be presented is the $5,000seventh annual Reynolds Aluminum Prize for Architectural Students. It goes to Kent C. Underwoodof Ohio State University for hisdesign of a retractable aluminumstadium dome.The Honor Awards Luncheonwill take place Monday, alumniluncheons on Tuesday, A I A business sessions on Tuesday andThursday and Host Chapter toursof Friday.

National Urban Group

Includes Four ArchitectsFour architects are among 15professional and civic leaders serving on the newly appointed National Commission on Urban Problems.The commission, which is concerned with codes, zoning, taxation,development standards and lowcost housing, is headed by formerSen. Paul H. Douglas.Architect members are LewisDavis, AIA, of Brody & Associates,New York; Ezra Ehrenkrantz, AIA,president of Building Systems Development, Inc., San Francisco; JehJohnson of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.;and Chloethiel W. Smith, FAIA, ofWashington, D. C. Commissionmembers were named by PresidentJohnson.Continued on page 26A I A J O U R N A L / A P R I L 1967

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AIATOURNAL/APRIL1967

25

N e w s l i n e s from page

21

The President said the group's

mission is "to work with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and conduct a penetrating review of zoning, housing andbuilding codes, taxation and development standards. These processeshave not kept pace with the times.Stunting growth and opportunity,they are the springboards fromwhich many of the ills of urban lifeflow."The commission is also "to recommend the solutions, particularlythose ways in which the efforts ofthe federal government, private industry and local communities canbe marshalled to increase the supply of low-cost decent housing,"the President added.

Italian Art Committee

Makes Film AvailableAn hour-long film, "Florence:Days of Destruction," is availableon a free-loan basis for public andprivate use.The film was donated to the Committee to Rescue Italian Art whichsaid prints can be ordered fromthese distribution centers of Association Films, Inc.: Ridgefield, N. J.(600 Grand Ave.); La Grange, 111.(561 Hillgrove Ave.); Dallas, Tex.(1621 Dragon St.); and Hayward,Calif. (25358 Cypress Ave.).The color documentary, narratedby Richard Burton, is an account ofthe flood of Nov. 4 which ravagedone-third of Italy and heaped immense damage on the museums,archives and libraries of Florence.The film's showing, the committee hopes, will be useful to helpraise funds for the restoration ofart works.

Vieux Carre Road Dispute

Submitted to Court TestThe plaintiffs, numerous personsand organizations including theNew Orleans Chapter AIA and theLouisiana Architects Association,"plan to appeal the case to theSupreme Court if necessary."So announced the Vieux CarreProperty Owners and Associates,Inc., as a declaratory judgment legal action was filed recently inCivil District Court, Parish of Orleans, New Orleans. The action isto test the legality of a proposedsix-lane elevated interstate highway along the riverfront area ofthe Vieux Carre or French Quarter.Continuedon page 28

Named as defendants are- the

New Orleans city administration,the City Planning Commission, theLouisiana Department of Highways, Louisiana's governor, thefederal highway administrator, theUS Bureau of Roads and the actingSecretary of Commerce."This proposed expressway,"said the Vieux Carre group, "financed by 90 percent federal, 10percent state and city participation,has been bitterly contested for sev-

eral years by hundreds of individuals and groups throughout the nation as destructive to the quaintand distinctive character of thearea, second only to IndependenceSquare in Philadelphia in nationalhistoric importance."The state Constitutional Amendment of 1936 provides that the protection of the 'quaint and distinctive character' of the area be regarded as a trust of the State ofLouisiana. If this trust is to belegally adhered to, the segment of1-310 (the interestate highway) affecting the legal boundaries of the

Vieux Carre cannot be constructed

as an elevated eyesore."The group said it intends to exhaust the appeal process if necessary "as a test case in the protection and preservation of ourhistoric and architectural heritage."

Contract '67 Show Said

Rife with New ProductsMore than 500 products and designs never before shown will beon display at the Contract '67trade show, exhibit officials say.The April 25-27 show will beheld in New York's Coliseum. Theproducts to be unveiled by exhibitors are expected to forecast revolutionary advances in the conceptsof furnishings and equipment forbusiness and institutional interiors.

LISKEY ALUMINUM, INC.

For more technical data, circle 287 on information

28

The federal government is inclined toward greater private financing of college housing, a trendthat can facilitate more imaginative architectural design.This was said at a recent Chicagoseminar called "Privately FinancedHousingIs It Right or Wrong forYour Campus?" Sponsored by theSimmons Company, the seminarbrought together educators, architects, financiers, private developersand college students.J. Trevor Thomas, director of theCollege Housing Division of the USDepartment of Housing and UrbanDevelopment, said a reduction to3 percent in the rate for federalhousing loans to colleges "attractedapplications from colleges previously obtaining private financing atsomewhat higher but still reasonable interest rates." To ensure thatfederal loans are not merely substituting for private credit, legislationwill be proposed to adjust the present statutory rate to what he calleda more reasonable level.The clear implication of the legislation, Thomas added, is "that theresulting interest rate would beenough higher to make at leastsome of the college housing bondsattractive to the private capitalmarket."Wilmont Vickrey, AIA, partnerin the Perkins & Will Partnership,Chicago, said privately financedresidential halls offer "a significantopportunity to create new conceptsof student living."The architect said that "withoutthe planning controls imposed byContinued on page 30

card

A I A J O U R N A L / A P R I L 1967For more technical data, circle 237 on information card

WVn affirmation of creative form:

AMERICAN BUTTERNUT

With its roots firmly planted in American heritage, American Butternut has long been a paneling favorite withdiscerning architects of virtually every persuasion. Even a momentary glance at its elegantly graceful graininspires the creative eye to search out design possibilities for this quietly beautiful masterwork of nature. Tothe restless imagination of the architect who seeks beauty within function, freedom within structure, AmericanButternut becomes an affirmation of creative form.

S T E M

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Representatives of six private

development firms formed a panelwhich answered questions aboutdormitory construction and financing. Said one panelist, RichardLamb, president of College Inns ofAmerica: "We have never found anarchitect who will guarantee thecost of a building. We, as privatedevelopers, are a free enterpriseoperating for profit and we make itour business to know how to makesure that a building will stay withina given budget."Thomas said the H U D CollegeHousing Program since its inception in 1960 has provided loans toaccommodate 750,000 students.The housing needs of the collegescontinued to spiral, however, andthe lowering of the interest rate to3 percent further intensified thedemand for federal loansso muchso that early last year there was anapplication demand of $760 millionand an authorized program level of$300 million. A moratoriumstillin effecthad to be placed on further applications.Thomas said the backlog will bereduced sufficiently before the current fiscal year's end to permit thelifting of the moratorium.

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AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

28

federal and state agencies, unique

educational and social amenitiescan be incorporated, increasing thespectrum and choice" in dormitoryaccommodations on a given campus. Study carrels, satellite resource centers, seminar rooms andaccommodations for a completerange of recreational activities arecontained in a number of new facilities.A panel of four students from theUniversity of Wisconsin and NorthCentral College, Naperville, 111.,said the features most wanted instudent housing are quietness andprivacy and the freedom to liveindependently. The students saidthey favored private, off-campushousing because such facilities usually offer these features.

THE SOLUTION:

N e w s l i n e s from page

card

For

The U S government is expected

to soon decide whether to go aheadwith the building of a supersonicair transport.What that decision will be hasbeen guessed about over the pastfew months. There were a fewsijms it might be negative; therewas perhaps more compelling evidence it will be positive.Continued

In any event, the Boeing Co. and

General Electric Co., winners of acompetition to build the SST airframe and engines respectively,have been financing developmentalwork out of a $200 million appropriation set aside from last year'sbudget. But funds are running out.So a decision is expected withinthe next month or two. The significance to architecture of the SSTsand the entire range of air traveldevelopment was discussed in anarticle by Morris Ketchum, Jr.,FAIA, in last month's A I A JOURNAL. The coming air epoch, Ketch-

T H E

um said, is a plethora of challenge

and opportunity for architects.The SST question has polemicists on both sides of the issue.Those against the venture withsome relish pointed to PresidentJohnson's scant mention of the program in his budget message.But the 1968 budget request ofthe^National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration included millionsof dollars for supersonic research,and this was viewed by SST proponents as a happy sign.The cost of SST developmentruns into the billions of dollars andterms under which private industry, including the airlines, is to pay

SCHOOLINE

AIP, 50 Years Old,

Looks into Next 50The American Institute of Planners is marking its 50th anniversary by looking into the next 50years."The Next Fifty YearsThe Future Environment of a Democracy"is the title of the AIP's meeting tobe held in Washington Oct. 1-6.The AIP, with a membership of4,300, was founded in Kansas City,Mo. in 1917.Postmaster General LawrenceO'Brien said an urban planningstamp "pointing to the need for federal, state and city cooperation tohalt the decay of cities" w i l l beissued for the occasion.EDUCATION

The first grants by the National

Council on the Arts in the fields ofarchitecture, urban planning andlandscape architecture have beenmade.They include up to 50 individualgrants of $750 each to undergraduates in schools of architecture,to be used for travel in the US.VEEPCHECKEREight other grants, ranging from$10,000 for a study of road signgraphics to $50,000 to develop design techniques to preserve Hawaii's beauty, were also made. Frederic D. Moyer, professor i nDECORATOR HOOKSthe University of Illinois department of architecture, has beenelected president of Scarab, national professional service organization. Scarab's invitation-onlymembership is made up of 500 architects, landscape architects andurban planners. Roger Montgomery, AIA, professor in the School of Architecture of Washington University, St.Louis, and head of its Urban Renewal Design Center, was namedthe first incumbent of the Albert P.Greensfelder Chair. The chair wascreated after the St. Louis RegionalPlanning and Construction Foundation, established more than 25CW6years ago by the late Mr. Greens 1965 V.P. Co. felder. awarded a $200,000 grantfor use in the university's urbanV O G E L - P E T E R S O NC O .design program. Continued on pnge36The CoatRackPeopleELMHURST, ILL.

rule 2 2 9 on information card

34

back the government remained to

be fully resolved. The terms involvedirect costs, interest and royalitiesand it appeared that questions surrounding these factors would haveto be settled before the SST program could move ahead.

three faculty members, the students

are examining historic and contemporary European architecturaldevelopments. Theodore J. Prichard, FAIA, washonored at the dedication of theUniversity of Idaho's new Art andArchitecture Building with the unveiling of a plaque citing his i n spiration to students. He heads theuniversity's art and architectureprogram and has been on the faculty 41 years. A program in urban planning willbe among new graduate coursesHoward University will offer next

34

The Boston Architectural Center has underway a series of seven

lectures, running to May 15 w i t h aconcluding presentation by FelixCandela, on new developments inconcrete technology. Thirty University of Illinois students are living in France underwhat is said to be the First formalarchitectural education programever offered by an American university in Europe.Spending a semester at LaNapoule on the Mediterranean with

academic year for the first time.

"Since New Jersey offers no adequate architectural drafting coursesto high school graduates, an acuteshortage has developed and there ispresently a great need for both design and drafting talent in the profession."So spoke James A. Swackhamer,president of the New Jersey Societyof Architects, as he announced theestablishment of an atelier in theEssex County Technical School,Bloomfield, N.J.

Institute Seeks Comments

On Legislation, Programs

$5,525 saved in annual heating costs by

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Please send me complete facts on

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circle

A I A J O U R N A L / A P R I L 1967

2 9 0 on

information

card

101

29a/Te

IHI

nOtlO

A new Institute "clearinghouse"

seeks the ideas and comments ofarchitects across the nation for theimprovement of federal housing,urban development and transportation programs.Andrew F. Euston Jr., directorof Urban Programs, said the comments will be considered in thepreparation of Congressional testimony as well as for use in government relations generally.The views-gathering activitycalled the Federal EstablishmentAppraisal Programis an outgrowth of a top-level meeting heldat the Institute last year. In thatsession, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Robert C. Weaver and five HUD assistant secretaries gained the views of 18 architects, landscape architects andplanners. The meeting also triggered a canvass of 80 practitioners inthe design and planning professions.A digest of the comments ofthose surveyed has been transmitted to HUD. The survey waspraised by Under Secretary RobertC. Wood for both its approach andswift execution.The Octagon meeting and surveyare, however, but the first stepsin what Euston hopes will becomea continuing dialogue between architects and HUD. He urges members to send him their commentson the federal programs and tofurnish any critques they may haveon federal legislation.Euston said that on some specificmatters questionnaires will be furnished to architects regarded asparticularly experienced in specificareas.Among anticipated situations inwhich architects' views will be valuable are the Ribicoff Committeehearings. A major concern of thehearings, soon to be resumed, mayContinued on page 43

N e w s l i n e s from page 36

HiddenSecrets

be the design of urban highways,

Euston said..Staff personnel to the Institute'snational committees are activelycontributing to the clearinghouseprogram, Euston said.

Historians' Award Made

To Richard KrautheimerRichard Krautheimer, author of"Early Christian and Byzantine A r chitecture," has been awarded theAlice Davis Hitchcock Book Awardof the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians.The work of the Jayne Wrightsman Professor of Art History atthe Institute of Fine Arts, NewYork University, published by Penquin Books (Pelican History of Artseries), was cited as the most distinguished piece of scholarship inthe history of architecture published i n 1966 by a North Americanscholar.Another of Krautheimer's books,"Lorenzo Ghiberti," written in collaboration with his wife, TrudeKrautheimer-Hess, received theCharles Rufus Morey Award in1956.A graduate of the University ofHalle-Wittenberg, Krautheimer hastaught at Marburg University, theUniversity of Louisville, VassarCollege and has lectured at theAmerican Academy in Rome. Hehas received many honors including the American Council ofLearned Societies award for Distinguished Scholarship in the Humanities.

Operable Classroom Wall

The hanger and track above are vital parts of theIncomparable 380 that you never see, yet they arethe principal reason why the 380 operates so easilythat a 90-pound teacher can open or close it in lessthan 30 seconds.The wall hangs free as it rides smoothly on speciallydesigned, heavy-duty ball-bearing hangers. Cold-rolledbar runways minimize friction. And the self-cleaningtrack is the strongest used on any movable wall today.Since it's all mechanical, the 380 is practically maintenance free; will keep rolling smoothly for years andyears. And when locked in place, the 380 affords idealsound control for classroom use.With the upsurge of teamteaching and the greaterneed for flexibility, the380 brings you the ultimate in sound-retardantoperable classroom walls.To discover all the secrets of the NSSEA ClassE Rated Incomparable380, write for CatalogF-266.

VOL. XLVII, NO. 4

Jni

CITIES: What's the Matter?

50

Bigger and better and much more expensive

Downtown is the name for a variety of choicesWho decides? And who grabs the tab?Getting around town is like ridiculousTax policies are the salt in urban woundsAll class enclaves pay a penaltyNobody has ever seen a city that . . .

Norval C. White, AIA

New York CityArchibald M. Woodruff Jr.Provost, University of HartfordPaul YlvisakerCommissioner, Department ofCommunity AffairsTrenton, N. J.Because of last-minute illness,Messrs. Dolben, Weiner andWoodruff were unable to participatein the panel discussions; however,each of them has reviewedthe report which follows.

What kind of cities do we want? What must we do to get them? These are the two most urgent issuesfacing urban America today. They are issues about which everyone is talking, writing, makingspeeches. But the more talking and writing, the greater the confusion seems to grow. Much of the talkseems to come from people who don't like cities and just want to get away from them; too much comesfrom people who think the needs and problems of our cities can only be solved from Washington. In the hope of wringing some order out of considerable disarray, The American Institute of Architectsjoined the National League of Cities, the Lincoln Foundation and the Luce magazines in sponsoring a1966 roundtable conference of experts, described by New York Mayor John V . Lindsay as the "Who'sWho of urban development." The purpose of the conference was to determine whether a broad areaof agreement might be found behind all the confusionand all the seeming contradictions. Thepanelists represented many different disciplines and viewpoints. Among them were the president of theA I A and seven colleagues; president and executive director of the league; president of the AmericanInstitute of Planners; incoming president of the National Association of Home Builders; three mayors;chairman of the National Housing Center; the federal urban renewal commissioner (now executivedirector of Urban America); chairman of the federal Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations; planning director of the federal Bureau of Public Roads; chairman of the realtors' Build AmericaBetter Committee; chief economist of the US Chamber of Commerce; president of the Institute ofPublic Administration; chairman of the Division of Urban Planning at Columbia University; chairmanof the economics department at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee; and the director of theInstitute of Urban and Regional Development at the University of California. What was probed forwas found: The roundtable revealed a broad area of almost-unanimous agreement on nearly everyurban problem. It should be clearly understood that no one panelist subscribed to every conclusionand recommendation in the consensus which follows.

PERRY PRENTICE. HON. AIA, MODERATOR

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

51

Rebuilding urban America twice as big

twice as good and a lot more expensive

Our urban problems would be hard enough to

solve in a static urban economy with a staticurban population, a static racial and social mix,and a static transportation method and systembut our urban economy and population are anything but static. On the contrary, our urban economy, society and technology are all undergoinggreat simultaneous changes; our urban population is doubling to a projected 1999 level wellover 250 million-plus, and before 1999 our urbanwealth will at least quadruple, as the average income of twice as many families doubles to a projected $15,000-a-year-plus-of-today's-purchasingpower. And even now, before these increases, oururban transportation system is already near thebreaking point.So within the next generation, our cities willhave to be almost completely rebuilt twice as bigand, we hope, at least twice as good. Within a generation we will have to erect and find the moneyfor more new urban homes, business buildingsand facilities than we have built in all the yearssince Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. We willhave to replace at least half of all today's urbandwellings because they will no longer be goodenough for anyone to want to live in when theaverage family has sufficient income to qualifyfor a $25,000 FHA-financed house. (This meanswe should build at least half as many new homesto replace decaying housing inside or close in toour cities as we add on the outskirts.) And we willprobably have to replace half of today's businessand industrial buildings because they will nolonger meet the vastly different needs of 1999business.In addition, many of our cities will almost certainly have to be restructured to fit some new and

radically different means of transportation. Highdensity cities like New York are finding that theadditional facilities needed to bring in just onemore car per day during commuter hours will cost$21,000; low-density cities like Los Angeles arefinding the cost, in money, time and space, ofrelying solely on the automobile equally bad.Most of today's cities "just growed" (and often"growed" too fast) in response to yesterday's different social and economic demands. This is onereason why most central cities are already in deeptrouble with problems they have neither themoney nor the authority to curemost of themproblems that call for major rebuilding and/orrestructuring. They are deep in problems concerned with slums, traffic, parking, sprawl, ugliness, housing; with recreation needs; with airand water pollution; with overtaxation andundertaxation.They are stuck with far more than their shareof the costs created by national problems likeeducation, poverty and segregation. Their municipal costs are climbing twice as fast as their localtax base.They are choked by obsolete political boundaries that 1) encourage both people and industryto seek tax havens in the suburbs and 2) make coI

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ordinated planning difficult and often just plain

impossible. They are losing prosperous familiesand their money to the suburbs almost as fast asthey are herding more poor families and theircosts into the slums. They are losing blue-collarjobs to the outskirts almost as fast as they canadd new white-collar openings downtown. Theyconsume four times as much land as they use.They are stuck with a tax system that penalizesimprovements and subsidizesobsolescence,blight, sprawl and the spread of slums, and theyare stuck with a concept of landed property thatlets landowners capitalize for their own privateprofit all the economies and advantages of urbanism, so city dwellers must pay twice over for themultibillion-dollar values they themselves createliving close togethervalues they have alreadypaid for once by an enormous investment of bothpublic and private money.North, south, east and west, big cities andsmall, new cities and old, all alike suffer in greateror lesser degree from all these problems. Highdensity cities like New York may have moretrouble with congestion; low-density cities likeLos Angeles may have more trouble with sprawl,but the latter has congestion at its center and theformer has sprawl on its outskirts. The biggerthe city, the bigger its problems have seemed togrow; the older the city, the more deeply theyare likely to be entrenched. A n d the formerpresident of The American Institute of Architects adds a word of urgent warning:"We cannot remake our cities without solvingtheir painful social problems. A s blight, congestion and lack of good-enough schools drivemiddle-income residents from our urban centers,the poor move in, the gap between the rich andpoor grows, and the suburban noose drawstighter. If the present trend continues, the untrained and undereducated poor will become thedominant population group in almost all ourmajor cities within the next few years. The consequences of allowing our cities to become the poorhouses of America had better be recognized whilethere is still time to avoid them."

For good or evil, the

process of rebuildingurban America is already underway and accelerating. Results sofar: a mixed bag of monotony and variety, harmony and incongruity,altruism and exploitation. And newness, newness everywhere.

Despite all these troubles and problems, there

must be something very good, very compellingand very magnetic about our cities because yearin and year out more and more people are flockingto live in or near them. America's whole population growth in the next generation will be concentrated in cities and their suburbs; by the year 2000they will add something like 150 million morepeople. Just when our cities seem to be sufferingfrom more troubles than ever before, they are infact enjoying the greatest urban and suburbanboom the world has ever known.Thus the building and rebuilding of our citiesbecomes an enormous problem and an enormously exciting challengea far greater opportunity than if there were less need to do almosteverything over, new and better.To meet this challenge and seize this opportunity, our cities will need all the help they cangetfrom architects and planners, from theupper-income families who have fled to thesuburbs to escape the cities' problems, from thestate governments and from the federal government, of course.A l l of us applaud and welcome the growing interest in urban problems shown by the federalgovernment, but, alas, this interest is still findingexpression more in words than in dollars. Thefederal government is busy casting itself in therole of the great benefactor of cities and the greatsubsidizer of urban improvement; but the hardfact is that the federal government takes many,many times more money out of our cities in taxesthan it would dream of returning in subsidies.In 24 years the Housing and Home FinanceAgency and its successor, the Department ofHousing and Urban Development, has not kickedback to the cities a nickel of taxpayer money forhousing and urban development; in every yearbut two, its receipts from insurance and othernontax sources have exceeded its expenditures.For fiscal years 1966 and 1967, H U D actuallybudgeted minus $100 million of tax money forhousing and urban development. City dwellerspay most of the federal taxes, but the farmers stillget back from Washington eight times as muchmoney as the cities; by some calculations, 13times as much. And most of the money the citiesdo get back is earmarked, not to ease the cities'present financial burdens but to encourage new

municipal spending by offering to share the increased cost of meeting responsibilities the citiesare not yet meeting.This is no time to think small about the moneyour cities will need. It will cost not billions buttrillions of dollars to correct what is wrong withour central cities today, while they are doublingtheir metropolitan populations and their moreand-more affluent citizens are doubling their demands for better everything.Between now and the year 2000, someone willhave to put up close to $1,500 billion for new andrenewal nonfarm housing alone (nearly half of iturban replacement housing); someone will haveto put up at least another $1,000 billion for newand replacement commercial, industrial and utility construction; and someone will have to put upat least another $1,000 billion for all the new andbetter community facilities needed to go with thenew and better housing: new streets, highways,parking; new and better schools and colleges;new park attractions, playgrounds, transportation; new smoke controls, sewers and sewagetreatment, water supplies; hospitals, etc., etc., etc.(Metropolitian New York alone projects a needfor 61 more college campuses for 1.3 million morestudents, 100 more hospitals with 45,000 morebeds, etc.).Over 33 years, the money needed to build andrebuild our cities twice as big and twice as goodwill average out to over $100 billion a year, andeven in tomorrow's far more affluent economy, itis just plain nonsense to hope that even half thatannual amount will be provided by any government: national, state or local. Governments willbe hard pressed to find enough tax money to meetthe $30 billion-a-year need for more and bettercommunity facilities.The rest can be found only by harnessing theprofit motive, much more effectively than now,to urban renewal and urban improvement, andmaking as much as possible of this enormous enterprise attractive and profitable for the investment of private capital. Private capital will get itsmoney's worth only if we make good planning,good design and good building more profitablethan bad. A n d it will be a lot easier to interestprivate capital in urban betterment if the local tax

Some of the newness has been carefully planned to

blend with the legacy of the past; tomake optimum useof precious land inthe city center; toplease a child whowants to take a rideon a turtle.

system is modified to encourage new construction

and better land use. instead of (as now) penalizingimprovements and subsidizing blight, slums andsprawl."Tomorrow's cities can be designed to providemuch greater efficency, much greater joy and delight than people have any notion of," says cityplanner Ballard.Adds Mayor Naftalin: "Right now today fewcities measure up to their greater opportunitiesfor better living."And Mayor Maier: "We can and must maketomorrow's city a far better place for its people.All our urban institutions must work together tomake tomorrow's city a place where each citizenwill have a chance to achieve his own full potential in an atmosphere of freedom, opportunity,openness, community and, let us hope, culture."And ex-Parks Commissioner Hoving: "Citiesshould be much more fun for everybodypoorand rich alike."With our fast-growing affluence and our fantastically expanding technology, there is noearthly reason why American cities should haveto be dull or ugly or dirty or polluted or trafficchoked or expensive to live and work in.There is no reason why cities should sprawlfar out beyond their boundaries to blight thecountryside with leap-frogging and prematuresubdivision.There is no reason why cities should let slumsand other inadequate, obsolete or decrepit buildings clutter and pre-empt most of their goodclose-in locations.There is no reason why our cities should wastemost of their land, most of their streets, their

parks, their open space, their waterfronts, their

rooftops.There is no reason why cities should wastemost of the third dimension that could multiplytheir convenience and their livability at much lesscost than sprawl.There is no reason why people who like highdensity living should not also enjoy open-spacerecreation quite near at hand, nor any reason whypeople who prefer low-density living should notenjoy it much closer to where they work andshop.There is no reason why good urban planningshould constantly be frustrated by obsolete political boundaries.There is no reason why city governmentsshould be kept too broke to make their servicesgood and desirable instead of just cheap andtolerable.There is no reason why our cities should notbe good places to bring up children, with goodschools and provision for safe outdoor playnearby.There is no reason why our central citiesshould be abandoned to the poor and the disadvantaged, or why they should be stuck with somuch more than their share of the problems ofpoverty and segregation.There is no reason why all our thinking aboutcities and city living should lag 60 years behindour time.Making our cities twice as livable for tomorrow's twice-as-big and twice-as-affluent urbanpopulations will take a lot of money; it will takea lot of replanning, redesigning and rethinkingboth thought and forethought.But we are all agreed that tomorrow's citycould, should and would offer its people far better, easier, healthier, more convenient livingcloser to where they work, shop and play, IF.We are likewise agreed that tomorrow's citycould, should and would offer its business farbetter and more profitable working conditionscloser to bigger markets, closer to supportingservices, and closer to more abundant and morespecialized labor, I F :If we accept the simple mathematical fact thatfor most people, urban living has to mean livingclose together, and if we focus our planning andspending on practical ways to make living closetogether more rewarding and less expensive.If we stop looking backward and dreaming thattomorrow's urban life could be more like yesterday's village life, and relinquish the notion thatlow density is somehow better for everybody.If we make good use of the new tools offeredby today's fantastic new technologiesnew toolsso numerous that we can mention only two:1. Airconditioning, which the ex-vice presidentof the National Association of Home Builders

calls 'the greatest improvement for indoor living

and indoor working since we brought the toiletindoors," an improvement that makes cities aslivable in summer as in winter.2. The electronic elevator, whichalmost unnoticedis changing the potentials of urban livingalmost as much as the automobile.If we make sure the city has a vibrant downtown to draw people and business from far andnear to live, work, shop and have fun.If we give some governmental agency the responsibility, the authority and the money neededto coordinate and make sense out of today'schaos of conflicting urban and suburban planning.If we stop asking local government to pay coststhat are not essentially localcosts that areborne by the central government in almost allother lands.If we restructure our biggest cities as radiatingclusters of high-density land use.If we persuade or compel city people and cityindustry to stop trying to get something for nothing at other people's expense, i.e., stop trying tosave a little of their own money by choking thecity streets, polluting the city water, polluting thecity air, etc.If we harness the profit motive forward insteadof backward to good land use and good planning,so private enterprise will find it profitable to assume, without subsidy, most of the cost of rebuilding our cities bigger and in every way better.If we stop letting landowners make city livingexpensive by capitalizing, for their private profit,all the benefits of today's huge urban investmentof other people's money./ / w e stop waiting for massive state and federalaid before tackling all the little jobs that needdoing first.If we give more thought to making cities goodplaces for rich and poor to live in and enjoy, andless thought to getting out of them.If we can find a cure for the problems and costsof segregation and one-class neighborhoods.

Where the action is downtown means

higher densities diversity multiuse

For people, this means living closer together to

maximize their freedom of choice in housing, career and employment opportunities, direct personal contact and confrontation, meeting peopleand making more kinds of friends. This closenessalso increases freedom of choice in places to shop,and places to pursue leisure-time cultural andrecreational activity.The more people who live close together, thegreater their variety of choices should be and thegreater their chance of being able to get what theychoose to want. The more people who share thecost of each choice, the smaller its cost to any individual, and the greater the combined ability ofthe group to support cultural activities and specialservices they could not otherwise afford.Some people like to live closer than others.Some people choose high density because theywant to be closest to the center of urban life; people who work downtown have an added reasonfor living close to downtown. Other peoplechoose lower density because time-saving is lessimportant to them than having their own littlehalf-acre; people who work in an outlying research center, university or factory have an addedreason for living farther out.But these differences are only differences indegree. Cliff dwellers and suburbanites alike aredrawn to the city to enjoy advantages only closein living can offer, and most suburbanites wishthey could enjoy their kind of living without traveling so far each day to get it.For business, minimizing the handicaps of distance means easy access to more abundant andmore specialized labor, to a greater variety of supporting services, to government offices, to lowcost mass transportation, to supplies in greatervolume and greater variety, and to more customers and bigger markets.

For business as for people, the consequence of

closeness and concentration should be greaterefficiency, greater economy and lower costs.Some kinds of business have to locate closer tothe center than others. Some must locate downtown for maximum access to markets, to clients,to supporting service or to a great variety of labor.Other kinds of business are more self-containedand so find it more profitable to trade maximumaccess for greater spaceto accept less accessability on the outskirts in order to get more spacethan they could afford at the center. Still othersmay find easy access to a freeway more importantthan easy access to downtown.But once again, the difference is only one indegree. The advertising agency downtown andthe factory in the suburbs are both drawn to thecity for advantages only closeness can offer, andmost suburban industry would relocate closer tothe labor center and the transportation hub ifcloser-in land were cheaper.The shape and pattern and density of our metropolitan areas are changing as cars and truckslessen our urban dependence on mass transportation to a single center, and the telephone makessemipersonal contact fast and cheap over greatdistances. Motorized road transportation hasmade, is making and must continue to make anenormous contribution to ease and flexibility ofurban movement and urban contacts. A n d it is nolonger necessary to go to the transportation centerfor so many kinds of shopping, or to find employment in those kinds of industry that are least dependent on quick access to markets or supportingservices (notably big factories).But however their pattern may change, the reason and purpose of cities remains unchanged andunchangeablethe same today as in the railroadage, the canal-boat age, and the stagecoach ageto bring people and businesses together for easeand variety of access and contact.Overcrowding is no problem at all on Park Avenue with up to 1000 people to the acre. Overcrowding had nothing to do with the explosion inWatts, where the density was not much more than20 to the acre.At the urban densities that command the highest rents from those best able to afford to live asthey like (i.e., on New York's Park Avenue, Chi-

56

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

cago's Gold Coast or San Francisco's Nob Hill),

there are only three US cities whose entire population could not live, work, shop, skate, swim,play tennis, worship, attend concerts and go tothe movies on the 18,000 acres within three milesof the center, leaving all the land outside thatthree-mile circle for heavy manufacturing, golfcourses, market gardening, low-density living andacre zoning.For example and specifically: At the densityproposed for New York's new World Trade Center and Battery Park Addition, the biggest city'swhole population could live and work and shopand play in Manhattan Island and the close-inquarter of Brooklyn, leaving most of Brooklynand all of Queens, the Bronx and Richmond foropen space. At the density which tenants seemto like in Chicago's Marina City, the whole population could live and work and shop and findplenty of recreation within two blocks of theChicago River between Lake Michigan and theMerchandise Mart.

other requirements of good business and the good

life.None of us is against low-density living withprivate outdoor space around each home. On thecontrary, all of us wish people who want lowdensity living could enjoy it much closer to townthan they can today, to save them the countlesshours they now waste getting to and from theirhomes, and we all agree with landscape architectHalprin that "Low density offers people something that high density doesn't, especially forfamilies with young children."But we wish more people would face up to theobvious fact that as our urban population doubles, the only way to bring low density close in isto develop much higher density at the center, withmuch less land waste everywhere. Says city planner Ballard, "With rising population we will haveto design our central cities to much higher densities to make any sense at all." Mayor Naftalinadds, "The test is how we combine high densityand low density."

We are not suggesting that all our cities should

be rebuilt for any such concentration. And mostcertainly we do not recommend that all the peopleof any big city should concentrate downtown, formany people would do better to live closer tosome satellite density planned and developedaround some activity that benefits from beingnear the city, but does not need to be right at thehub (such as a university, a big manufacturingplant or a shopping center).

And almost all of us sympathize with the former A I A president who says, "Sprawl cityandby that I mean the great megalopolis spreadingfrom Boston to Washington, from Pittsburgh toMilwaukee, from San Francisco to San Diegoistoo wasteful because you duplicate your services,your streets, your utilities, all the civic functionspeople pay for in taxes. You spread them out thin;you use up your land. In the process you destroythe countryside and waste our heritage."

Nevertheless, we think the simple geometric

and mathematical facts about living close are important to remember. A n d we are all agreed thatour cities should be planned for living and working as close together as is compatible with the

If the No. 1 reason and purpose for cities is to

maximize the advantages of closeness and overcome the handicaps created by distance, it follows that sprawl is the direct denial of that reasonand purpose.Two generations of urban Americans havebeen obsessed, bewitched, dazzled and blindedby the outward explosion touched off by the automobile, which made millions of outlying acres

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

57

newly accessible and deflated the price of closein land by temporarily lifting the pressure tomaximize its use.Ninety years ago, the limit on urban spread depended upon how long it took to get to work byfoot or by carriage. Sixty years ago the limit hadbeen doubled, defined by how long it took to getto work by foot and train or trolley. Thirty yearsago the spread limit had doubled again, to howlong it took to drive to work on streets laid out forhorse-drawn traffic. Today the spread limit hasdoubled once again, and now depends upon howlong it takes to drive to work with an assist fromour multibillion-dollar expressways.We have been so obsessed with this two-dimensional explosion that we have given far too littlethought to the third dimension. Average buildingheight in every city except New York and Chicagois still only about two stories; average groundcoverage is still only about 15 percent; in somecentral cities, nearly half the ground is preempted by streets and parking lots. Many municipal costs per family are multiplied as the urbanDm If*I

FELLINIS

radius sprawls farther and farther out; average

families spend more than half as much money ontheir cars as they spend to eat, and almost twothirds as much as they spend to own or rent theirhomes: and millions of workers spend a quarteras much time getting to and from their jobs asthey spend actually working.Making today's urban area twice as big horizontally for tomorrow's twice-as-big urban population would be impossibly costly in dollars,intolerably costly in wasted land, unbearablycostly in added travel time to and from work andto and from open-space recreation. Doubling theirarea by growing up instead of out would cost farless and add only seconds instead of minutes toeverybody's travel time.Whether we like it or not, most urban growthin the next 30 years will have to be up, not out.The problem is not whether we would like togrow upward, but how to grow upward in a wayeverybody would like.Even sprawling Los Angeles is finally learningthis simple lesson and building three times asmany new apartments as single-family detachedhomes; even in suburbia, the trend from coast tocoast is to two-story houses instead of one.Today's greatest land waste is not the vacantlots and underused acreage of suburban sprawl.It is our failure to put more high-value, close-inland to more than one use, on more than one level.For example, in Chicago only half the land insidethe downtown Loop is profitably rented above theretail level, and right beside the Loop, landenough for half a million people to live and workand play on is used only for railroad yards thatwould better be covered over. Los Angeles actually squanders nearly a quarter of its downtownon single-level parking.

People and cars and dogs and

signs and lights crowd into thecenter city. The action happens on a number of levels,figuratively and literally, asat Marina City and Reston. Asland gets scarcer, air rights assume more importance, andarchitectsplanlatter-dayPonte Vecchios and give oldcandy factories a face-lift. Butwith any kind of luck, the citydweller can still find a littlebit of space to rest his feet,walk his dog, buy a drink, orwatch the girls in their summer dresses.

/ Jute,.

* VJiaiii

H U M UP'

Austin

Architects, planners, builders and civic officials were all too slow to grasp the full significance of two great changes:JL Today's high-speed automatic elevators makevertical transportation much quicker, cheaperand more convenient than horizontal and2. Whereas most products can be used only onceat a time, the new economy of vertical transportation makes it possible to use land simultaneouslyas often as a hundred times, with each repeateduse apt to be more desirable than the use below(i.e., with the highest floors commanding some ofthe highest rents). The lower levels are best forstores, parking, schools and other places of assembly, but the upper floors are much morevaluable for offices and apartments.Just because land has been used once for a railroad yard is no reason why it cannot be usedagain for a sports arena or an office building oran apartment or all three. Land used once for a

store on the lower floors can be used again for a

residential hotel. Land used once for a block-sizeparking garage can also be used for a blocksize city park. A school building site can be usedagain for a football field on the roof.Now, at last, architects, planners and developers are beginning to correct this multibilliondollar waste by learning the economics and applying the economics of horizontally stratifiedland use. They would have stopped the wastesooner had it not been subsidized by today's ubiguitous practice of underassessing and undertaxing underused land. Chicago's Loopside railroadyards and Los Angeles' one-level parking lotswould have been built over for multiple use longago had they been taxed at more nearly their potential multilevel land-use value, instead of afraction of their actual single-level value.Twenty years ago, examples of stratified landuse were hard to find, except that in nonprestigeneighborhoods people "lived above the store."New York had an office building built over achurch; Chicago had a church perched on top ofan office building. Chicago had the MerchandiseMart and New York had a dozen luxury apartments and the Waldorf-Astoria sitting over theNew York Central tracks; New York had one luxury apartment with a small swimming pool andtwo tennis courts in the basement. Cincinnati hada new hotel terraced on top of a department store.But now the change is coming with a rush. NewYork is tearing down its monumental Penn Station to make room for a new below-ground ter-

minal under a new sports arena and a new office

building; covering the Pennsylvania yards withan office building wrapped around a terminalwarehouse; and getting set to recover the landcost of new schools by letting private builderserect high-rise apartments above them. Washington is wrapping high-rent offices around parkinggarages that occupy otherwise hard-to-rent interior space and seeking free land for public housingover new expressways. Philadelphia is runningpedestrian malls block after block below streetlevel. Bartlesville has a Frank Lloyd Wright towerhalf apartments, half offices.Chicago offers the outstanding example ofstratification's potential in Marina City, whichputs 40 stories of apartments on top of 20 storiesof parking on top of two levels for shopping ontop of a marina for 200 pleasure boats, all integrated with 16 floors of offices, a theater, bowlingalleys, tennis courts and a swimming pool,thereby setting a precedent that New York, Denver, Pittsburgh and San Francisco have beenquick to follow. Hartford has bridged two avenues to create a three-city-block open plaza, twostories up on the roofs of the street-level stores,banks and garages. Apartments in many cities areincluding swimming pools and other recreationin space that would otherwise be wasted. Andmost cities are beginning (not always wisely) torequire off-street parking under all new high-risebuildings, even in areas where more parking facilities can only serve to bring in more cars andcreate more congestion.Examples of multilevel, multipurpose reuse ofthe land are still too few, but the trend is obviousand the potential for making high densities muchpleasanter, more efficient, more economical andmore convenient is enormously exciting.This exciting potential includes the muchbroader use of many devices, such as: arcaded sidewalks to permit wider downtownstreets decked-over streets to create pedestrian mallsbetween one-floor-up shop windows nursery and primary school classrooms, daycare and babysitting centers built into every highdensity apartment block (already standard practice in Russia)" coed bachelor apartment houses with swimming pools and other recreational centers on the

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AIA JOURNAL/ APRIL 1967

lower floors, to solve that most urgent middleincome urban problemboy meets girl, girl meetsboy outdoor play and recreation space high abovethe streets, either on the rooftops, on an openfloor or in interior courts built over street-tostreet lower levels underground sidewalks running for blocks, asin Rockefeller Center ample off-street loading facilities replacing thealmost-unrentable ground floor under central-cityloft buildings (like New York's now-almost-impassable garment center) highways decked over railroad and rapid transit rights-of-way.Whenever land is put to stratified multipurposeuse, human activities should get top priority onlight and air; service functions should go underground (as in Victor Gruen's revolutionary planfor rescuing downtown Fort Worth).The essence of urbanism is variety, and only avibrant night-and-day "downtown" (i.e., centerof urban life) can provide and support the varietyof shopping, services, contacts, job opportunitiesand culture and recreation needed to make thecity a magnet, drawing people and business fromfar and near. Without such a magnet, there is nogood-enough reason for people to want to live inthe city instead of outside. A n d without such amagnet, it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, topersuade enough middle-class families to returnfrom the suburbs to the central city.Downtown variety needs thousands of peopleto support it; it takes great variety to bring inthousands of people. The bigger the crowds, thegreater the variety they can support; the greaterthe variety, the bigger the crowds. To support thismaximum variety, downtown needs people notjust 9 to 5, but all day long and far into the night;and it helps to have people living and sleepingclose in, as they do in most of the cities whosedowntowns have the strongest pull: New York,Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, New Orleans,Washington, Boston and Philadelphia. The more

attractions d o w n t o w n can offer, the more people

w i l l w a n t to live close; the more people w h o liveclose, the easier it w i l l be f o r d o w n t o w n to support more attractions, night and day.The more compact d o w n t o w n is kept, the easierit w i l l be f o r more people to take advantage of itsvariety f o r business and pleasure. The easierd o w n t o w n is to get to, the less p u l l i t w i l l need todraw people in, and the farther i t w i l l pull f r o m .A strong d o w n t o w n magnet is w e l l w o r t hspending money to create, i f the city has none. I tis w e l l w o r t h spending money to preserve andstrengthen, i f such a magnet is already presentand pulling. But there is a l i m i t to h o w much public money should be spent to protect the realestate investment in pre-Depression buildings, i nw h a t used to bebut no longer isthe heart oftown.D o w n t o w n is not a location; i t is an activity; i tis where the action and variety are todaynotnecessarily where the action and variety used tobe. New York's W a l l Street area has not been atrue d o w n t o w n since before the C i v i l War. Todayit is just a high-rent, one-purpose satellite i n anoff-center location, miles f r o m the nearest railroad station, bus terminal or airport connection;miles f r o m the shopping center, the amusementcenter, the cultural center and the fastest-growingcommercial center. Likewise, w h a t calls itselfd o w n t o w n Los Angeles has not yet been remadeinto a true d o w n t o w n , even though the m u l t i m i l lion-dollar public investment i n expressways hasmade it the easiest-to-reach spot i n that hardto-find-yourself-anywhere metropolis, and eventhough the m u l t i m i l l i o n - d o l l a r investment in newoffice buildings shows promise of making i t onceagain the business center.Says architect Gruen: " I n Los Angeles, i f y o uw a n t to find the best hotel, y o u don't go d o w n t o w n . I f y o u w a n t to see a first-run movie, y o unever go d o w n t o w n . I f y o u w a n t quality and variety of merchandise, y o u never shop d o w n t o w n ,for the stores there are just a shabby second-rateshopping center, catering to the low-income areassouth and east. Everything connected w i t h thebetter w a y of life has moved away. U n t i l justrecently, Los Angeles d o w n t o w n has been supported mostly by the huge civic center, w h i c hemploys 10,000 people on the public payroll, andby the political lawyers and financial lawyers andthe like w h o feel they must stay close to the seatof government."

Who's going to make

the decisions whopicks up the check

A more chaotic chaos w o u l d be hard to dream

up than the chaos over what government shoulddo what, and what government should pay f o rwhat, to meet our urban needs.Responsibility is divided horizontally f o u rways between local, county, state and federalgovernment. I t is d i v i d e d vertically scores andsometimes hundreds of ways, first between thecentral city government and a l l the surroundingt o w n and village governments, and then againbetween a l l these governments and a s t i l l greaterp r o l i f e r a t i o n of special tax districts, administrations and authoritiesbridge authorities, parkauthorities, water districts, sewer districts, firedistricts, school districts, library districts, garbage districts, hospital districts, etc. W i t h i n thelocal governments, authority is o f t e n d i v i d e d s t i l lfurther, w i t h the school board going its o w n w a yto spend more money than anyone else. In W a s h ington the same confusion is repeated. Both theSenate and the House scatter responsibility f o rurban affairs legislation among half a dozen u n coordinated committees. F i f t y d i f f e r e n t federalagencies are n o w w o r k i n g on the problem ofwater supply and water p o l l u t i o n (up f r o m 25f o u n d by the Hoover Commission i n 1955). Grantsfor urban renewal come f r o m one department,grants f o r roads come f r o m another, grants f o rp o l l u t i o n control f r o m a t h i r d . The I n t e r i o r Department is spending $25 m i l l i o n to preserve andbeautify the historic heart of Philadelphia, but themillions of dollars needed to cover over the expressway that w i l l cut i t off f r o m the river w i l lhave to come (or not come) f r o m the CommerceDepartment.No city government collects anywhere nearenough money of its o w n to take on the w h o l e job

As f o r New York's W a l l Street, there are no big

stores there, f o r stores cannot live on the lunchhour trade; there are almost no restaurants thereother than quick lunches, f o r restaurants cannotprosper on one meal a day. There are no hotelsthere, no theaters, no movies; even the aquariumis gone; and after 6 p.m. and on weekends thereare almost no people.AIA JOURNAL/ APRIL 1967

61

of coping w i t h all problems that c o n f r o n t i t . One

reason no city government has enough money isthat f e w states let the cities collect enough taxes,even i f they w a n t to. The second reason is thatf e w cities like to collect any more taxes than theyhave to; they w o u l d rather get grants-in-aid f r o mthe states or f r o m Washington. The t h i r d reasonis that most cities are a f r a i d to raise taxes f o r fearof speeding the exodus of industry. The f o u r t hreason is that the cities' only exclusive revenuesource is the property tax, and most states maketheir cities collect most of their property taxes,not on land (which is undertaxed) but on i m provements (which are already so overtaxed thatthe tax i n h i b i t s even some of the most neededimprovements). The f i f t h (and perhaps the biggest) reason is that i n this country, local government is stuck w i t h enormous costs that in othercountries are paid as a matter of course by thecentral government, so, paradoxically, the localtax burden i n most cities is too high even thoughthe tax take is too l o w !One result of keeping city governments poor isthat too f e w city services are good enough. A second is that f e w suburbs w a n t to be annexed tocities that can't a f f o r d good schools and othertop-grade services. The t h i r d result is the p r o l i f eration of special tax districts to pay f o r servicesthe cities have no money to provide (Los Angeleshas 246 of them). Fourth, cities are a f r a i d to raisemore taxes even i f they could, f o r fear of d r i v i n gstill more people and businesses to tax havens i nthe suburbs. F i f t h , many industries are m o v i n g tosuburban tax havens anyhow. Finally, the sixthresult is that nobody can tell just w h o is responsible f o r what. Schools, f o r example, are paid f o rpartly by the local school district, partly by thestate, a little by Washington, w i t h the state settingthe standards, the local authorities picking theteachers and the federal government decreeingthe racial balance. Streets and highway costs aresplit f o u r ways, and the city cannot control h o wnew state and federal highways cut them up.(Says the past president of the A I A , " W e r i p ourcities w i t h motorways and delude ourselves thatw e are doing i t i n the name of progress.") Toomany in-city expressways are allowed to splitneighborhoods like a Chinese W a l l ; even depressed roadways l i k e Detroit's divide the t w osides like a river.Most of us agree that the political boundariesof our cities are archaic and should be brought i n

line; plans that w o u l d put Oakland's heaviest i n dustry right next to Berkeley's w a t e r f r o n t park.A n d the minute any plan starts taking shape,speculators too o f t e n double its cost by skyrocketing the price of land needed to carry i t out."Good land planning is impossible i n the face ofland speculation," is the dismal dictum f r o m theInternational Housing Center in Rotterdam.Getting anything done about good plans is d i f ficult and discouraging at best. I t is doubly d i f f i cult and discouraging in urban America, where i tis next to impossible f o r any government or government agency to get the clearly recognized responsibility, authority or money needed to coordinate scores and hundreds of conflicting plansand see that a coordinated plan is carried out.Perhaps the w o r s t consequence of today'schaos and confusion over w h a t level of government should do w h a t is this: The federal government is being asked to get i n v o l v e d i n a l o t oflocal problems that c o u l d better be handled locally, while the local governments are beingforced to pay a lot of not-really-local costs theycannot afford.One big reason so many city governments aretoo poor to pay their f u l l part in making theircities pleasant f o r people and profitable f o r business is that, i n the US, most of the cost of publiceducation is charged to local government (sometimes the city itself; sometimes the school district). These costs were small enough f o r localgovernment to carry w h e n f e w children wentbeyond eighth grade, and schooling meant mostlythe three Rs; they are n o w f a r too heavy to chargeagainst the revenues traditionally reserved f o rlocal government (i.e., the property t a x ] , and theyw i l l soon redouble.The United States is almost the only countryon earth where the centra] government does notpay all the costs of free publiceducation.So instead of saying that our state and federalgovernments are helping our local governmentspay f o r schools that are a local responsibility, itmight be more correct to say that our local governments are crippling themselves financially tohelp our central governments pay f o r schools,whose support should be the responsibility of thecentral government.A second reason w h y our city governments aretoo poor to make their local services good is thatthe local property tax is s t i l l being tapped f o r

many of the costs of poverty and many of the

costs required by today's much-more-generousspending f o r poor relief. These costs are set bystate and federal policy, and most of us t h i n k theyshould all be paid out of state and federal taxes.Urban poverty is n o w concentrated i n the centralcities, so Professor Netzer's research f o r theBrookings I n s t i t u t i o n states flatly that "Beforethe tax differential between cities and suburbscan be erased, the cost of poverty services w i l lhave to be taken off the back of the property tax."Poverty and education are not local problemsor local responsibilities i n the same sense, or toanything like the same degree, that police and fireprotection, water supply, garbage collection, sewage disposal, parks and playgrounds, local streets,off-street parking, suburban commutation andurban mass transportation are local problems andlocal responsibilities. Half the people on relief i nalmost every city and half the w a r d patients i nthe city hospitals came there f r o m somewhereelse; half the children i n the city schools camef r o m somewhere else and w i l l g r o w up to w o r ksomewhere else.The director of the A d v i s o r y Commission onIntergovernmental Relations stated i t : "Becausewelfare and educational programs have lost theiressentially local character and have acquired critical importance f o r the well-being of state andnation, they should no longer be l e f t to the vicissitudes o f local boundaries, the geographic dist r i b u t i o n of taxable properties, the policy leaningsof tax assessors, or even the political courage oflocal governing boards."Poverty and education n o w account f o r morethan 60 percent of a l l local government spending.They cost local government more than a l l therevenue n o w provided by the only revenue sourcereserved f o r local governmentthe property tax.I f these not-primarily-local poverty and education costs were all paid by the state and federalgovernments that call the tune f o r them, our localgovernments w o u l d have plenty of money of theirown to cover all their own, strictly local costsand make a l l their o w n local services good w i t h out sending their mayors to the state capital or toWashington, hat i n hand, to beg f o r subsidies.The first rule of good management is to fixresponsibility (including financial responsibility)where i t belongs. Instead of asking the state andfederal governments to subsidize strictly local

costs like parks and sewage disposal, i t might be

much wiser to ask the state and federal governments to face up to their o w n primary responsibilitiesthe states on education, the nationalgovernment f o r poverty. W i t h some 60 percent ofthe property tax load thus removed, cities andcounties could pick up the difference and meettheir o w n clearly local responsibilities.

as high as 10 cents a car-mile, mass transportation

w i l l also have to be subsidized. It is much cheaperto subsidize mass transportation than to subsidized r i v i n g to w o r k at the present scale.)Most notoriously, upper-income commutersshould not expect the state or federal governmentto subsidize their flight to the suburbs by payinghalf the cost of their commutation.

S h i f t i n g the basic cost of education to the states

w o u l d not necessarily require giving the statesany more control over local schools than theynow exercise, and communities that want betterschools than the statewide standard could stillafford to supplement what the state was w i l l i n gto spend.

Urban landowners should not be a l l o w e d to get

rich by getting other taxpayers to pay the cost ofall the public facilities w i t h o u t w h i c h their landw o u l d be good only f o r market gardening, and notmuch good at that.

L i v i n g close requires more, rather than less,

willingness to cooperate, to share the cost insteadof trying to get away w i t h something f o r nothingat somebody else's expense (usually the taxpayer's). The implications are enormous. Forinstance:Industries, utilities and apartments should notexpect to hold d o w n their o w n costs by pouringtons of soot and garbage ash into the air to f a l l onsomebody else's property, f o r someone else topay f o r cleaning up. (In New Y o r k , this cleaningb i l l is officially estimated at $500 m i l l i o n a year;almost as much each year as i t w o u l d cost to putsmoke control devices on a l l the city's garbageincinerators and f a c t o r y and u t i l i t y chimneys.]Towns and factories should not expect to savemoney by pouring untreated sewage and wasteinto our streams f o r someone else to p u r i f y f o rreuse.Drivers should not expect to f o u l up t r a f f i c byparking free or cheaply at other taxpayers' expense, on land priced up to $100 a square foot. A slong as motorists can park free, or almost free, onbusy streets, h o w can we expect them to pay bythe hour f o r off-street parking?I f the primary reason f o r cities is to m i n i m i z ethe handicaps of distance and maximize the advantages of easy access, it is almost unbelievablyfoolish to subsidize t r a f f i c congestion by lettingparked cars cut four-lane roadways d o w n to t w o .Transit riders should not expect to ride longdistances f o r a f r a c t i o n of the cost, by getting thecity to subsidize most of the fare.*(But all of us recognize that as long as commutingto the cities by expressway gets a subsidy r u n n i n gPanelist Gruen dissents. Says he: "Mass transit is such an essentialcity service that it should not just be cheap; it should be free, likethe sewers. And this would save all the money now wasted collecting fares, which can run more than a quarter of the total cost of thetransit systom."

64

A I A JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

We all sympathize w i t h the cities' money problems; we a l l agree that the cities need moneyrelief f r o m state and federal governments.But too many o f our cities' money problems areof their o w n making. Cities w o u l d need lessmoney help f r o m above i f they could screw uptheir courage to stop subsidizing obsolescence,blight and sprawl by undertaxing valuable underused land, and subsidizing water waste, t r a f f i cjams, air p o l l u t i o n and water pollution by farbelow-cost user charges. W e could get much better cities much sooner i f our cities w o u l d just stopsubsidizing their worst faults.The purpose of cities is to maximize the c i t i zens' freedom of choice, but that does not meancitizens should be free to do as they choose atsomebody else's expense (specifically, that ofother taxpayers). M o s t of us think the best w a y tolet people decide f o r themselves w h a t they w a n tand w h a t they don't w a n t is to let the market govern their choice, by letting them pay f o r it.People w h o choose to drive to w o r k should bew i l l i n g to pay w h a t it costs to park their cars.People w h o choose to burn their garbage shouldbe w i l l i n g to pay f o r adequate smoke-control devices; industries w h i c h choose to dump industrialwaste into our streams should be w i l l i n g to paythe cost of first p u r i f y i n g their o w n waste; landowners w h o w a n t a neighborhood park w h i c hw o u l d increase the value of their property shouldbe w i l l i n g to pay an annual assessment to buy theland. (This neighborhood assessment policy isone big reason w h y Minneapolis citizens enjoythe best neighborhood park system in America.)

Getting there isn't half the fun parking

problems mass transit commuters

Metropolitan New York will have more than 30

million population within a generation; metropolitan Los Angeles will reach 15 to 20 million.Small cities can and should be centered arounda single high-density hub, but big cities must inevitably be structured or restructured as close-inclusters of high density, radiating from a stillhigher-density hub, for obvious and complementary reasons.There is no reason why low-density land userssuch as one-floor factories or suburban shoppingcenters should pay for central-city space. Theseland users benefit by being near the urban centerbut need not be right in it, for they are largelyself-contained, i.e., they do not need maximumaccess to supporting services, markets, diversified labor, etc. (Central-city colleges should adaptthemselves to central-city land use in compactbuildings like those around them.)There is no reason why assembly-line workers,shopping center customers, etc., should travel allthe way downtown 200 times a year. For them itis much more efficient and economical to relocatetheir destination closer to where they live.Low-density land use in a maximum-densitycenter defeats the whole purpose of the center.There is no reason why lawyers or admen, forexample, should have to waste time crossing aruralistic college campus to reach a client's office.Each of tomorrow's clustered satellites shouldcombine good high-density living at the centerwith good low-density living between satellites.

Each should make multilevel, multipurpose use of

its most central land. Each should have a quickand economical connection to downtown by highway and/or mass transit. Each should include asgreat a variety of shopping, services and amenities as its area can support (but obviously thislocal variety w i l l seldom be anywhere near asgreat as the variety made possible in downtown,which has the whole metropolitan area to drawon and serve).Recognizing the need of high-density clusterdevelopment close in, Paris is planning six newsuburban centers, each with 250,000 to 400,000population, with a strong regional governmentoverall. This French scheme of high-density subcenters close in is almost the direct antithesis ofthe not-too-successful British attempt to growlow-density, garden city "new towns" far outbeyond the green belt. It follows quite closely theprecedent set in Sweden, where Stockholm hasalready built two close-in model satellites, Vallingby and Farsta, both within nine miles of thecenter. Now New York's Regional Plan proposesrationalizing the metropolitan sprawl around 12suburban subcenters, each of which w i l l soonhave a million people living within a 10 mileradius.Sometimes whole new towns like Baltimore'sColumbia and Washington's Reston w i l l beneeded. More often, existing centers (like Newark, New Brunswick, New Rochelle, Yonkers,Jamaica and White Plains around New York) w i l lhave to provide the nucleus for tomorrow's clustering satellites, for the costs of starting a brandnew town are staggering. People hesitate to movethere until jobs and shops are ready; shops andjobs try to wait for people; and the developer ofa medium-size town may well have to sink $60million before he turns his first profit.Brand new towns can profit by one great advantage: They can'be coherently planned to offer

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

65

better living in t o m o r r o w ' s w o r l d than older communities handicapped by having "just g r o w e d " tomeet yesterday's needs.Butto those w h o w o u l d sponsor new townsor new suburban centers, w e offer these three bitsof caution and c r i t i c i s m : Too many of today's new towns are too f a r outto give people easy access to the variety only thecentral city can provide. A n d each passing yearmakes it harder and costlier to assemble a bigenough acreage close enough i n . Too many (if not all) of today's new towns areplanned just to siphon off w h a t is best in the central city, leaving behind a l l the problems like poverty and segregation. The greater the successachieved in this escapist maneuver, the greaterthe danger that the new towns w i l l destroy themselves, by destroying the central city on w h i c hthey must a l l depend f o r many essential servicesand attractions. Too many of today's new centers are plannedtoo small, and w i l l soon be a mess. For example,the N o r t h l a n d Shopping Center on Detroit's cityline was such an outstanding success that w h a twas planned f o r a m i l l i o n square feet of stores isnow 1.4 m i l l i o n , and around i t has g r o w n a wholenew urban complex of high-density apartments,hotels, laboratories, restaurants and even Detroit's only legitimate summer theaterall requiring parking and sitting i n a lake of parking fivetimes as big as the building i t surrounds. Peoplel i v i n g i n the high-rise apartments can see theshopping center nearby, b u t they cannot get thereon f o o t because they find i t unbearable to w a l kthrough these vast p a r k i n g areas and cross them u l t i l i n e highways constructed to make the center accessible.This development now sprawls over 450 acres.I t could have been achieved w i t h much greaterconvenience and economy on a hundred acres, i fonly the planners of N o r t h l a n d could have f o r e seen w h a t a magnet their model shopping centerw o u l d be and had had the means to implementthat foresight.As f o r new cities (as distinct f r o m new towns),all of us think they are a fine idea, f o r there is al i m i t to h o w much population today's m e t r o p o l i tan areas can accommodate pleasantly, and h o wm u c h industry they can accommodate efficiently.W h e n , as and i f a new city is built, w e hope i tw i l l escape all the mistakes our older cities havemade. But the hard fact is that no new communitybig enough to be called a city is being b u i l t andonly one is being planned; and B i l l Levitt, w h oought to know, says i t w i l l require at least a b i l l i o ndollars to finance the development of a new cityof 100,000 population.

sible to adjust to the street parking needs of the

automobile. Whether New York elects to spendanother $21,000 per car f o r new approaches tobring more cars into lower Manhattan, there is noroom on the streets f o r more cars, and no parkingspace off the streets f o r them, and the more people w h o come i n by car, the more people w h odecide just to stay out to avoid the congestion.Conversely, new cities, loosely structured bythe automobile, w i l l find it hard and perhaps i m possible to adjust to reliance on mass transit,w h i c h is efficient only i f many thousands of people w a n t to get to a reasonably small number o fdestinations f r o m a reasonably small number ofpoints o f origin. Los Angeles shelved its masstransit plans w h e n a t r a f f i c survey showed 230points of destination, some of them spread overa three-mile diameter and f e w of them importantenough to j u s t i f y track-bound transportation toreach them.In Washington, Gruen's transit survey f o r theNational Capital Planning Commission projecteda need of first restructuring the District around adozen new urban subcenters at the major stationsof the proposed transit system, each incorporating a bus terminal and a big parking garage tomake the station an easy point of interchangef r o m other means of transportation, and each prov i d i n g the incentive f o r a 150-acre high-densitydevelopment incorporating housing, retailing,cultural entertainment and employment facilities.M e a n w h i l e , the Bay area around San Franciscois going ahead regardless, w i t h an $800 m i l l i o n ,75-mile mass transit project that could have somestartling results. For one thing, i t w i l l give landowners around the 30 stations a w i n d f a l l p r o f i t o fmore than $800 m i l l i o n , i.e., an unearned increment that could (but won't) be recaptured to pay

off the entire cost of the system. (Most of the cost

of the Erie Canal 140 years ago was paid off by aspecial tax on the lands whose value it multiplied.)BART will also start a building boom aroundeach station that could, for example, rebuild SanFrancisco's Market Street 30 stories high, withsomething like an eight-square-block platformproviding direct access to 2 million square feet ofoffice space and shopping. (Nothing so coherentwill happen, because no one is planning for it.)Some kind of subcentered restructuring willprobably be necessary anyhow to make big citieslivable as they redouble their population, but it isfoolish to think mass transit can replace the private car (especially on the periphery), or that anysingle means of transportation can meet all theneeds of tomorrow's big cities. The Bay area transit system is not expected to absorb more than 10percent of the trips now taken by auto. Says economist Wheaton: "People accustomed to the convenience of driving direct to their destination w i l ltake a lot of persuading before they w i l l walk toa bus, bus to rail transit, ride to their station, andthen bus and finally walk again to where theywant to get." But others cite examples in NewYork, Chicago and Philadelphia where bettermass transportation has brought thousands ofcommuters back to the rails.Moving jobs to the outskirts is no cure-all forhighway congestion in commuter hours, for thereis no use expecting people to make nearness totheir jobs the No. 1 consideration in choosingwhere to live. In New York thousands of commuters from Westchester ride the subway fromGrand Central to Wall Street, passing on theirway thousands of commuters from Staten Islandand Brooklyn who work near Grand Central. InLos Angeles, thousands from the valley jam thefreeways on their way to work in Orange Countyand vice versa. Almost everywhere, morning andevening rush hours find some freeways trafficjammed in both directions.

workers to their jobs in an hour than a single

seven-car train, and New York's estimate of$21,000 for the capital cost for bringing in onemore commuter car is exceeded by Washington's$23,000. Neither figure includes any money foradding more parking facilities, though each addedmile of expressways requires seven times asmuch space to park the cars it brings in. Alreadyparking lots and local streets give over to theautomobile 54 percent of the downtown area inAtlanta, 50 percent in Los Angeles, 40 percent inBoston, 44 percent in Denver.Sooner or laterand we hope soonermostbig cities w i l l have to work out their own newbalanced solution to their traffic and transportation problems. This solution w i l l almost certainlyinvolve some return to much more use of man'soriginal means of locomotion: walking. It w i l lalso involve much more reliance on high-speedvertical transportation, and wide acceptance ofmoving sidewalks and the revolutionary new lowcost systems for automated mass transit that arealready well past the design stage. It will also reflect some equally revolutionary but still visionary changes in cars and trucks.In many cities, traffic and transportation w i l lprobably entail keeping cars off some of the busiest streets and reserving them for pedestrians, asin Gruen's very successful reshaping of downtown Fresno, California.

The bigger the city, the bigger the cost of putting primary reliance on automobiles to handlethe commuter rush. A three-lane expressway,costing up to $95 million a mile, can carry no more

Thesuburban shoppingcentermecca for the affluent societycan be anice place to visit, but it'sliterally hell on wheelsgetting there. Some communities try to cope withcars by arbitrarily excluding them from downtownand creating "pedestrianmalls." Others try banningon-street parkingexceptfor the exceptions.

The upside-down urban tax structure

low on land too high on improvements

One part o f the realty tax is the tax on improvements. The other is the tax on the u n i m p r o v e dvalue of the land on w h i c h the improvementstands. I t w o u l d be hard to imagine t w o taxeswhose impacts on urban development are moredifferent.Heavy taxes on improvements are bound todiscourage, delay or even deter owners f r o m making improvements; the bigger the improvementtax, the smaller the owner's incentive to spendgood money to improve his property, instead ofinvesting the money somewhere else or puttingit to some other use.Contrariwise, heavy taxes on u n i m p r o v e d landvalues (more correctly, site values, or perhapsstill more correctly, location values) tend to encourage, speed or sometimes even compel i m provements. The bigger the land tax, the biggerthe leverage on owners of underused property todo something to increase its earning powerorsell i t to someone w h o w i l l .Heavy taxes on improvements are bound tolower the supply and raise the cost and rent f o rimprovements, but land taxes heavy enough tobring more land on the market are bound to l o w e rthe price of land.The dualism of property was recognized by theclassical economists, and f e w students now question the conclusion reached long ago by Turgotand A d a m Smith that taxes on unimproved landvalues cannot be passed on (except under rentcontrol, w h i c h survives only i n New York State),so i t is nonsense to suggest that heavier taxes onthe land under slum properties w o u l d make thepoor people who live i n slum buildings pay morerent.

substantially the h o l d i n g costs of land, and thus

encourage more intensive utilization." M o r e thantwo-thirds of today's property tax n o w f a l l s onthe improvement, less than one-third on the land.So s h i f t i n g the w h o l e weight of a 3 percent-oftrue-value property level to the site w o u l d requirea 10 percent rate on the land to produce the samerevenue.Nothing less than a 10 percent rate w o u l d beadequate to make the owners of underused landrelease i t w h e n i t is needed f o r more intensiveuse, instead of h o l d i n g i t off the market w a i t i n gfor higher and higher prices. A n d w i t h the federalgovernment absorbing more than half the locallevy as a tax deduction, and the present euphoricexpectation that land prices w i l l continue to soar15 percent a year compounded, many believe thatthe land-tax rate w o u l d have to be even higherthan 10 percent to be effective.If we w a n t private enterprise to make its m a x i mum c o n t r i b u t i o n to rebuilding our cities biggerand better, i t is foolish to penalize and discouragethat c o n t r i b u t i o n by overtaxing improvements.As a l l bankers can figure, but too f e w tax menseem to realize, a 3 percent-of-true-value tax onimprovements actually costs improvers almost asmuch as a 50 percent sales tax paid off on the i n stallment plan over 60 years at 5 percent interest.A n d i t should be obvious to everybody that, i n an

A l m o s t a l l of us agree w i t h the conclusion

reached by Dr. Netzer's research f o r the Brookings I n s t i t u t i o n that "the present property taxtends to discourage investment i n new construct i o n and rehabilitation. A change to the site-valuetax w i l l encourage building and rehabilitation. . . .Heavy taxation of land values w o u l d increase

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economy where every business decision must

first be checked against its tax consequences, theequivalent of a 50 percent sales tax can be amighty powerful and effective deterrent.An improvement tax like Boston's 6.1 percentof-true-value is the installment plan equivalentof a 10 percent sales tax, and such a levy can makeimprovements so unprofitable that even primebuilding sites will have a negative value (i.e., beworth less than nothing). So the only way Bostoncould induce Prudential Insurance to pay $3.7million for 28 prime Back Bay acres for PrudentialCenter was to cut the maximum tax on new buildings to about half the tax on existing structuresa concession worth much more than $3.7 millionto Prudential. No other industry's productsexcept liquor and tobaccoare taxed as heavily asthe building industry's product.If we want to get rid of slums, it is foolish tosubsidize them by assessing and taxing slumproperties only half or a third as heavily as goodhousing with the same market value (i.e., by tyingthe land assessment to the building assessmentand assessing the land as almost worthless because the building on it is almost worthless, instead of assessing the land high because thelocation could be valuable if put to a better use).In the words of New York City's 1961 adviser onhousing and urban renewal: "No amount of codeenforcement or tenement rehabilitation can keeppace with slum formation unless and until theprofit is taken out of slums by taxation." Almostall of us agree with the Joint Economic Committeeof Congress, which found that "state and localgovernments have failed to make maximum useof the enormous potential inherent in the property tax for either the prevention or the cure ofpoor housing and other blight conditions. In fact,since today's property tax is based mostly on thevalue of the improvements, those who permittheir property to deteriorate, reducing area property values, are rewarded with lower propertytaxes. Landlords who enhance the value of theirproperty have their assessments raised."If we want to speed up the replacement of obsolete buildings such as now pre-empt most of theland in and around most central business dis-

tricts, it is foolish to keep them standing and profitable by taxing not only the aging buildings butalso the land under them, less and less as thebuildings get older and more and more rundown.Tract-by-tract research conducted by the UrbanLand Institute, with the cooperation of the Milwaukee tax commissioner, showed that it wouldbe profitable for private enterprise, withoutanysubsidy, to tear down and replace practically allthe obsolete buildings downtown if the propertytax were all on the valuable land they cover, sothe tax burden on the replacement would not bemany times heavier than the tax burden on therelic. Says Professor Gaffney, who conducted theresearch: "Today's property-tax practice is slowing down the replacement of obsolete structuresby 20 to 30 years."One very big reason so many cities are in trouble downtown is that they "growed" like Topsywithout, at the same time, cleaning out the decayof age at the center.The horses and carriages of our grandfather'sday are gone with the wind, along with the cobblestone streets, trolley cars, steam trains andcoal stoves, but most of the buildings our grandfathers knew are still standing today. Nearly athird of all the people of Manhattan still live inrailroad flats that were banned before 1900, andthese slums are so underassessed and undertaxedthat it has cost an average of $486,000 an acre tobuy them up for demolition!Too often, renewal has come too late. Toomany cities have let old buildings stand so longthat their neighborhood has died around them. St.Louis is not the only city whose core is ringedwith rubble because it waited too long for thebulldozer to force a renewal that should havegone on year by year and piece by piece whilethe area was still alive.If we want to minimize suburban sprawl andstop blighting the countryside with prematuresubdivision, it is foolish to assess and tax pressure to release their land at a reasonable pricewhen it is needed for orderly urban growth. Toomany assessors seem to confuse the property taxwith the income tax; they assess valuable landfar below its asking price as long as it is producingno income. On Long Island, idle land priced at$20,000 an acre is commonly assessed as low as$500 an acre.If we want to lessen the cost of slum clearance,it is almost unbelievably foolish to inflate theprice of land needed for urban renewal by undertaxation. Once again, consider how New York hashad to pay an average of $486,000 an acre for theslum properties condemned and demolished for

public housing. One reason f o r these high prices

is the l o w tax these properties had been paying.A t land costs like that, how can anyone expectprivate enterprise to provide good housing f o rlow- or even middle-class families w i t h o u t enormous subsidies?I f w e want to check the land-price inflation thatthreatens to price good new homes out o f themarket, it is foolish to subsidize that inflation byassessing and taxing land lightly, and then penalize the homebuyer w h o has just paid too much f o rhis land, by taxing h i m too much on his house.Since 1954, w h i l e a l l other homebuilding costshave been held steady or actually lowered, landcosts have been soaring 15 percent a year compounded, and before the 1966 tight-money crisis,a three-to-one m a j o r i t y of homebuilders votedthis their most urgent problem.Likewise, i f w e want to make low-density l i v ing possible closer to d o w n t o w n , it is foolish tosubsidize the waste of central-city land by undertaxation. The Urban Land Institute research referred to before showed that f u l l utilization of theland w i t h i n three or f o u r miles of the center ofM i l w a u k e e w o u l d satisfy most o f the demand thatis n o w p r o l i f e r a t i n g sprawl, thereby making landavailable f o r low density less than half as f a r outas now.If w e w a n t to hold d o w n the cost of municipalservices, it is foolish to undertax underused urbanland and so encourage sprawl right inside the citylimits, f o r almost all these costswater supply,sewage disposal, garbage collection, streets, fireprotection, police protection, as w e l l as gas, electricity, telephone connections and other utilitiesare m u l t i p l i e d by distance.

have sought to subsidize favored voters at the expense of local tax revenues. The l i m i t on homestead exemptions is usually set at or below $5,000of assessed value, but where assessments r u n toonly 25 percent of market value, this means thata home w o r t h $20,000 may be completely taxexempt.Federal tax policies (or practices) likewisemake urban problems worse: Speculative land profits are taxed not morethan half as heavily as ordinary income, p r o v i d e dthe landowner does nothing to i m p r o v e his property f o r sale (i.e., provided he does nothing toearn his profit). The 25 percent capital-gains tax makes landassembly f o r large-scale development d i f f i c u l t ,for a locked-in owner can o f t e n mortgage hisproperty f o r almost as much as he could realizeon a sale after deducting the gains tax. Letting each new owner depreciate the samebuilding all over again is one more serious deterrent to replacement. The older and more decrepit

In brief, there is hardly an urban problem today

that is not aggravated by today's practice of undertaxing land and overtaxing improvements.State governments must take much of theblame f o r the undertaxation o f land and the overtaxation of improvements, f o r most states presently compel cities to apply the same tax rate toland as to improvements, and most states condonethe practice of assessing land half as heavily asimprovements.The states must take f u l l responsibility f o r theshocking proliferation of suburban tax shelters,where the tax rate is sometimes only one-tenth ashigh as the city rate because the suburbs can getaway w i t h bringing in industry w h i l e keeping outindustrial workers w i t h children to educate.Local assessment inequalities are made worseby state-sponsored exemptions. These include thel i m i t of a f e w hundred dollars w h i c h some statesimpose on the assessment of any land that isfarmed (even when it may be held f o r development at many thousands o f dollars per acre), andthe homestead, veterans' and senior citizens'exemptions, by w h i c h some state governmentsAIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

71

the building, the shorter its life expectancy for tax

purposes, and the bigger the depreciation the newowner can take. Shoddy construction is encouraged by the accelerated depreciation-allowance which makes itadvantageous for the builder to sell out withinseven years. Neighborhood assessments are denied the income tax deductibility enjoyed by local taxes.This is just about the most serious deterrent toneighborhood financing of neighborhood improvements. Federal corporation and income taxes dilutethe impact of the property tax by letting corporations deduct 52 percent of the local levy fromtheir federal tax bill, and letting individuals deduct up to 80 percent. (On the good side, it shouldbe recorded that this helps make the tax on improvements tolerable by cutting its impact inhalf.)But on the bad side, it should also be recordedthat it helps inflate the price of land, by absorbingmore than half the tax cost of holding idle landoff the market.With the federal government absorbing 50 percent of the local land tax, and assessors assessingidle land at not more than 20 percent instead ofthe theoretical 100 percent, the effective yearlytax cost of holding a $100,000 tract off the marketis not the $3,000 it is supposed to be but a quitenegligible $300.Good living in the city should be inexpensive,because there are so many people to share thecost of the multiplicity of community services,amenities and attractions that the city offers.Actually city living is more expensive thancountry living, and one big reason is that we letlandowners capitalize all the economics of urbancost-sharing for their private profit. The greater

the saving achieved, the more the landowner can

add to his ground rent. Of this, the simplest example is cited by Winston Churchill: When London abolished the penny toll which workers hadto pay for crossing the Thames to reach their jobs,rents on the workers' tenements were promptlyraised a shilling (12 pence) a week.By definition, the unimproved value of urbanand suburban land derives, not from anything anypast or present owner has done to improve it butfrom an enormous investment of other people'smoney to create the community around or near it.Some of this investment is made by private enterprise; some is made by those who support hospitals, museums, colleges, etc.; much of it is madeby government.No matter who makes the investment, the landowner cashes in on it. When New York extendedthe subway beyond Spuyten Duyvil, land pricesin Riverdale zoomed upward. When taxpayersspent $350 million to bridge the Narrows to StatenIsland, landowners there got a much-bigger-than$350-million windfall. Spending $800 million taxpayer dollars for Bay area rapid transit will almost certainly enrich landowners around itsstations by at least an equal amount.For a smaller-scale example, consider the prediction by the New York Regional Planning Association that taxpayers will have to invest $16,850in highways, schools, water, sewers, etc. for eachfamily added to the metropolitan population.Change that "per family" to read "per lot" and itbecomes clear that other taxpayers will have toinvest $16,850 in community facilities to enablea landowner to sell his suburban lot for $8,000.What all this adds up to is that citizens andsuburbanites must pay twice over for all theircommunity facilities. First they pay for them ontheir tax bills, their charitable donations or theirbusiness investments. Then they pay for them allover again, in higher ground rents to landownerswho have been allowed to capitalize all this investment of other people's money into the priceof their land.Under today's tax and assessment policies, theowners of idle and underused urban and subur-

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ban land make only a m i n i m u m c o n t r i b u t i o n to

the huge community investment needed to maketheir land reachable, livable and richly salable.The less they do to improve their property and thelonger they keep i t idle or underused, the less theyare taxed to help pay f o r the c o m m u n i t y facilitiesneeded to m u l t i p l y its value. Said W i n s t o nChurchill: "The landowner's p r o f i t is often in d i rect proportion to the disservice he does the comm u n i t y by holding his land off the market u n t i lother people's investment has m u l t i p l i e d itsprice."

W i t h high-density stratification, private enterprise seeking tenants and customers can be expected to absorb many costs that are otherwiseborne by the taxpayers. For example, private enterprise pays all the costs of transportation andu t i l i t y services above the street level (a cost thatruns close to a third of the first cost of high-riseconstruction); and private enterprise is beginningto find it profitable to offer built-in amenities andrecreation (swimming pools, etc.) that mightotherwise have to be provided by additionalfacilities in public parks.

Many municipal costs are m u l t i p l i e d by distance, and correspondingly reduced by reducing

distance. Consider, f o r example, water distribution. I f demand f o r water doubles i n a fixed area,all we need is to expand pipe diameters. But i fdemand doubles by doubling the service area, w emust double our pipe mileage; increase the crosssection of our old system at its base to transmitthe extra load to the new extension; increase pressure at the load center to maintain pressure at thefringes; and increase the allowance f o r peaking.

High-density stratification o f t e n permits major

savings through round-the-clock use of facilities.For example, Chicago's M a r i n a City owes muchof its $200,000-a-year garage revenue to triple useof part of its parking space f o r apartment tenantsby night, f o r business tenants by day, f o r b o w l i n galley and theater patrons i n the evening.

Or consider the f a r more urgent problem o f

streets and highways, w h i c h n o w cost local taxpayers more than any other item except schools.The greater the sprawl, the more miles of streetsneeded to get f r o m A to B, and the more cars thatw i l l have to travel more miles along those streets.Fewer people can get where they w a n t to go onfoot, and fewer can get to and f r o m where theyw a n t to be by mass transit. Residential sprawldoes not take cars out of the t r a f f i c centers; onthe contrary, it brings i n more. Sprawl is not aflight f r o m traffic congestion b u t its principalcause.M u l t i p u r p o s e high density can even out thepeaks and valleys of demand and utilize m u n i c i pal services seven days a week around the clock;conversely, specialized areas waste these costlyservices most of the time. For example, N e wYork's Lincoln Center f o r the Performing A r t scomes to l i f e only f r o m 8 p.m. to m i d n i g h t andd u r i n g matinees; N e w York's W a l l Street area isalive only f r o m 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week.The rest of the time i t is so dead that the girl arrested f o r posing nude on the Sabbath on thesteps of J. P. Morgan was acquitted because therewas no one w i t h i n blocks whose morals could becorrupted!

The renaissance that saved Pittsburgh started

when its business and political leaders decidedtheir city was w o r t h saving and took on the jobof saving i t . The first thing they d i d was tackle alocal problem no one else could correct f o r them the air p o l l u t i o n that had made Pittsburghalmost synonymous w i t h smoke.The same k i n d of civic leadership made Fresnothe model of w h a t small cities can do to revitalizetheir d o w n t o w n a model w h i c h is bringing v i s i tors f r o m all over the w o r l d to study, praise andimitate. The same kind of civic leadership i n spired (but alas could not execute) the plan f o rsaving d o w n t o w n Fort W o r t h , and the same k i n d

Urban land is too valuable to underuse part

of the timemostlyafter dark, like TimesSquare, or only in thedaytime,likeWallStreet. Cities can afford playgrounds, likeNew York's Riis Plazaor Longfellow Park inMinneapolis. But theycan't afford abuseslike turning expensive,close-inlandintograveyards for peopleor cars.

of civic leadership explains the award-winning

project for clearing the oil derricks out of downtown Oklahoma City to create the most beautiful,the most practical and the most fun downtown inmid-America.Some of our cities' problems may be too big forthe cities to meet without outside help (most specifically, the problem of poverty, which is a national rather than a city problem); but most ofour cities' problems are too small and too localfor any outsider to take on. Consider, for example, the first six things the slum dwellers in Pittsburgh's notorious Hill District asked the Redevelopment Agency to get done for them. Theyrequested that the city: collect our garbage repair our streets put in more street lights tear down 357 vacant and boarded-up buildings as a neighborhood nuisance provide safe playgrounds for our children (perhaps on the boarded-up building sites) give us a voice in determining what is to bedone with our own neighborhood instead of having all the decisions made for us by somebodyelseperhaps somebody in Washington.Only the city itself can clean the streets. Onlythe city can stop the multimillion-dollar waste offree-for-all air pollution (much of it from thecity's own chimneys). Only the city can stop themultimillion-dollar waste of make-work and conflicting building codesa waste that adds at least10 percent to the cost of building and rebuilding.Only the city can ease downtown street congestion by coordinating traffic lights, designatingone-way streets, requiring all street and understreet repairs to be done at night, banning onstreet parking and otherwise discouraging thedowntown use of private cars. Only the city canlower the foolish minimum ceiling height forparking garages to cut their cost and maximizetheir car capacity per cubic foot. Only the city canmake streets and parks safe at night. Only the citycan end the scandalous and underassessment andundertaxation of slums and other ill-used andunderused land.There are hundreds of other small things ourcities could and should be doing to help themselves without waiting for outside helpsmallthings whose cost could be proportionately small,but whose cumulative value could be very bigindeed.Everybody talks about the need for open space,but most of the talk is about special tax concessions to help farmers keep on farming on close-inland that has become too expensive for farming,or to help golfers keep on golfing on close-in landthat has become too expensive for private links.Some of us think farms and private golf linksbelong a few miles farther out, where thousands74

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

of people won't have to drive added miles past

their "no trespassing" signs on their way to work.A l l of us support the movement for wildlifepreserves, state parks, national seashores, etc.,but all of us wish there could be more talk, moreaction, and more private and public spending forthe kind of close-in urban open space withoutwhich only the rich can enjoy the good life in ourcities.The open space our cities need most of not justsomething green and shady to look at. The openspace our cities need most is open space peoplecan use and have fun in, and its use-value w i l l depend on how many people can use it how much,how often, how safely and how near home.Every neighborhood needs its own neighborhood park and playgrounds. The denser the neighborhood's population, the greater its need fornearby outdoor recreation; and the poorer theneighborhood, the more urgent this need is aptto grow. A dozen small parks close to home canoften be more important than one big park toofar away.Neighborhood parks must always be tailored toneighborhood needs. One that would be fine in ahigh-class residential area might be no good atall in the slum. Good neighborhood parks neednot be expensive to equip or maintain; imagination and clear thinking about what kind of parkfacilities the neighborhood needs can sometimesmake a small budget go a long way toward bothfirst cost and maintenance cost. New York isbudgeting only $37,500 apiece for 200 small newparks in crowded areas, most of them on taxdefaulted lots the city already owns.Neighborhood parks are beneficial in otherways than merely providing recreational spaceclose at hand. They are also good indeed forneighborhood property values, so property owners petitioned for one and volunteered to financeits first cost by a special neighborhood assessmentat so much per front-foot. (This plan may needsome subsidy in the poorest sections.)But neighborhood parks and playgrounds canmeet only part of the urban need for outdoor recreation. There are many activities and enjoyments for which only the bigger central parks canprovide the needed space and draw the crowdsneeded to support them. For example, only a bigcentral park can support frequent outdoor concerts or a zoo or a large skating rink or spaceenough for riding and hiking, etc.For city children, safe outdoor space to play inis almost as important as good schools to learn in,

but most cities spend 50 times as much for schools

as for parks and playgrounds. New York, for example, allocates only seven-tenths of 1 percentof its budget to parks and recreation.A s for city adults, those who can afford it showhow much they want open space and open spacerecreation by moving to the suburbs or by jamming the expressways for their weekend exodus;either way, they spend far more money to get toopen space and open space recreation than itwould cost to provide good open space and openspace recreation close at hand right inside thecityprivate open space for those who can affordto be exclusive, public open space and recreation for everybody. In a recent survey in Milwaukee, most people put better recreation facilitiesin that city's fine park system first on their list ofdesired civic improvements.We all agree with the director of the Instituteof Public Administration that "Instead of spending millions of tax dollars for highways to helppeople escape from the city to find outdoor recreation, we should pay more attention to providing recreational facilities inside the city." In SanFrancisco, enormous numbers of suburbanitesdrive into the city to enjoy the city's parks andbeaches; some say that as many suburbanitesdrive in as citizens drive out for recreation. Morecities should study and follow San Francisco'slead.New York could serve as a good example ofwhat needs to be done (and has recently begundoing something about it). New York has morewaterfront than any other city in the world540miles, much of it city-owned, with 35 miles ofbeachesbut the city pours in nearly half theuntreated sewage that makes almost all its watersunsafe for swimming and even kills off most ofthe fish. New York has 37,750 acres of park land,most of it underdeveloped and way out wherefew people can enjoy it. Says the former parkcommissioner: "Most of the people of New Yorkhave to get their recreation on vacant lots thatare stinking with garbage and littered with oldcars and mattresses. The ball fields our kids haveto play in are ridiculous and disgraceful."Until last year, New York has wasted most ofits billion-dollar-plus investment in Central Park;says the former president of the A I A : "CentralPark has been a big wasteful space that peoplecouldn't use, a beautiful dead spot in the daytimeand a dangerous place at night." New Yorkers stillget less use and fun out of Central Park's 846acres than the Danes get out of 22 acres in Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens, among whose trees andflowers are six big restaurants, an open-air theater, a dance hall, two bandstands providing almost continuous afternoon and evening music,a lake and an amusement park complete withminiature railroad, etc.

The urban ghetto

black white witha lot of gray areas

Racial segregation is not a local problem; it is

a national problem. In origin it is not an urbanproblem, but it has been dumped on our cities tosolve, with nearly 95 percent of all Negroes outside the South urbanized. It is now many cities'No. 1 problem, and one city governments cannotcure without many kinds of help, including all-outcooperation from state and national governments.It is a problem nobody can solve until millions ofpeople, both white and nonwhite, understand itbetter and pitch in to play their own large or smallpart in the solution.And unless somebody solves it, many greatcities like Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago may find themselves desertedby the white middle-class and abandoned (exceptfor small enclaves of luxury housing for the rich)to the nonwhite poor, trapped in the slums bytheir poverty, and the nonwhite middle-class,trapped on the border of the slums by segregationand the lily-white suburbs' refusal to let them in.Already Washington has become 63 percent nonwhite, Detroit 39 percent, St. Louis 37 percent,Philadelphia 30 percent, Chicago 30 percent. Between 1950 and 1960, as everyone knows, Washington offset a growth of 181,000 Negroes with aloss of 226,000 whites; Chicago, a growth of 321,000 Negroes with a loss of 399,000 whites; NewYork, a growth of some 700,000 Negroes andPuerto Ricans with a loss of some 800,000 otherwhites.In Russia the government builds all the newapartments around big hollow courts that provide

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

75

safe play space for the tenant's children (as well

as nursery schools and shared baby-sitting andday-care facilities). In America it is hard to findexamples where the open space around new highrise apartments is widely used.Sooner or later, as urban population swells, thelogistics of moving millions of people out of thecity for weekend outdoor enjoyment w i l l becomeintolerably costly. It is high time to start givingmuch more thought and spending much moremoney to make our cities good places for outdooras well as indoor living, instead of devoting somuch thought and money to getting out of them.We need to develop a whole new urban package that will give people with children what theyneed inside the city, instead of making parentswho can afford to go move out. And we need togive much more thought to making city life pleasant and rewarding for the poor, who are nowpouring into our cities, not so much because theywant to but because they have no other place togo for jobs.Racial segregation is not a single problembut the sum of many different onesa differentcommunity problem for almost every city andneighborhood, a different personal problem forevery segregated nonwhite. Different as all theseare, they are all parts of two basic problemsone almost new and seething with new bitterness,the other old and deep rooted in old prejudices.One problem is the plight of the 5 million-oddurban nonwhites who are almost desperatelypoorthe plight of the 45 percent of all Negroesthe 1960 census found living in "deteriorating" or"delapidated" housing.The other problem is the frustration of theother 5 million-odd nonwhites who are no longer poor5 million-odd urban nonwhites who,against great handicaps, have earned their way upto family incomes over $6,000 (up from 4.74 million indicated by census in 1963). These millionnonwhites have adjusted their lives to middleclass aspirations but still find themselves deniedmiddle-class acceptance and status.These two very different problems call forequally different housing solutions, money solutions, opportunity solutions, timing solutions

tit'

and nothing but more confusion can result from

confusing the two.It is just plain nonsense to think all nonwhitesare alike and to act as though their problemscould be solved in the same way. The fact is thatthere are more differences among nonwhites thanamong whites because on top of all their otherdifferences is superimposed a wide range of diference in how many white ancestors they haveand what social, educational and financial advantages this white blood may have given their grandfathers. Caste lines among nonwhites are at leastas strong as among whites, not just in lands likeHaiti and Jamaica whose population is nearly 100percent nonwhite but in this country too.College-educated nonwhites (and there aremore Negroes in US colleges today than whitemen in English universities) have the same aspirations as college-educated whites, and havegood reasons for feeling they should be acceptedfor what they are, instead of being rejected forwhat their great-grandfathers were. Middle-classnonwhites (and nonwhites have to work a lotharder to achieve middle-class incomes andvalues) have the same aspirations as middle-classwhites, only more so. After long years of frustration they are more eager for status; market surveys show that they spend more of their incomesto be nicely dressed, spend more for "personalcare," buy more expensive shoes, spend more fortheir home entertainment equipment. They limittheir families to fewer children, work harder ontheir lawns and planting, and seem to have madegood neighbors in every tract where they areaccepted, from Levittown on the East Coast toEichler on the West.These people do not need special relief or special subsidies. They do not need special schoolsfor their children, for their children have littletrouble keeping up with white classmates. Whatthey need now is recognition of their pastachievements, freer access to better-paying jobs(Negro incomes still average 47 percent lowerthan white), a wider door to escape their presentsegregation on the edges of the nonwhite slums,and a better chance for further progress towardassimilation into the rest of our social and economic life.These nonwhites moving up have little in common with the poor nonwhites sunk in the slumsexcept their color and their common resentmentof segregation. They have so little in common thatwhen New York tried to speed desegregation bymoving poor Negroes out of Harlem's slums intonew public housing in middle-class areas, themiddle-class Negro owners of nearby homes protested as angrily as their white neighbors.

M o s t of the Negroes n o w crowded into urban

slums are n e w l y arrived f u g i t i v e s f r o m the f a r mmechanization that w i p e d out a m i l l i o n fieldhands' jobs i n the South, and sent them fleeing tothe cities to seek jobs f o r w h i c h they had neitherskills nor training. On top of this came a massmigration of 700,000 penniless Puerto Ricans,mostly to New York, and a mass migration ofMexican peons that made Los Angeles the w o r l d ' ssixth largest Spanish-speaking city. For this hugeand sudden influx, the citiesnorth, south, eastand westwere completely unprepared, w i t h o u tjobs, housing or schools ready to receive them.The newcomers were equally unprepared f o rurban living. O l d established urban Negroes w e l comed the Negro newcomers w i t h little enthusiasm, and the Spanish-speaking newcomers w i t heven less. Poor whites greeted them w i t h openbitterness and hostility, f o r they threatened theirlow-pay unskilled-labor employment just at atime w h e n automation was eliminating millionsof cheap-labor jobs,Poor nonwhitesneed much better housing, butthe sad f a c t is that as long as there are 6 m i l l i o nf e w e r decent homes i n the urban housing inventory than there are urban families i n need ofhomes, i t is inevitable that 6 m i l l i o n urban f a m i lies w i l l have to live crowded into substandardunits. M o s t of these 6 m i l l i o n v i c t i m s of the urbanhousing shortage are bound to be the poor, anda disproportionate number of the very poor arenonwhite.So w e agree w i t h H U D Secretary Weaver thatthe best answer to the n o n w h i t e slum problemand the housing segregation p r o b l e m is to b u i l denough good housing so there w i l l be a good homeavailable f o r everyone. Some of this new housingw i l l have to include b u i l d i n g new l o w - r e n t units,but most of the low-rent need could be met betterby t r i c k l e - d o w n work, just as the auto needs oflow-income families are better met b y secondhand cars than by cheap new models. W i t h today's land costs, today's building-trades wagesand today's code and labor restrictions, privateenterprise cannot hope to b u i l d good enough newhomes cheaply enough f o r poor people to buy orrent w i t h o u t big subsidies. T w o of the wisestcontributions government could make to betterhousing f o r the poor w o u l d be to help finance thepurchase and resale of sound used dwellings, andto help finance low-cost modernization.But more good enough housing is only a smallpart of the answer.Poor nonwhitesneed freedom to move out oftheir racial ghettos and live closer to availablejobsbut when all restrictions are ended, mostnonwhites still w i l l prefer l i v i n g w i t h their o w npeople, just as almost every other ethnic grouphas tended to stick together f o r a generation ormore; o f t e n f o r three generations.

Poor nonwhitesneed better schools and bettereducation,but bussing white children to nonwhite-neighborhood schools cannot be a goodenough answer, w h e n it means holding w h i t e children back because poor nonwhite parents cannotgive their children the advantages needed to starteven and stay even. School buildings i n n o n w h i t e neighborhoods are notoriously inferior, partly because they are old buildings i n o l d neighborhoods; teaching i n nonwhite-neighborhoods averages below the white-neighborhood level,mostly because the teacher's w o r k is harder andthe pay no more.But i n all fairness it should also be realized thatNew York, f o r example, spends as much per pupil(well over $1,000) to educate nonwhite childrenin the public schools of H a r l e m as the t u i t i o ncharged by the city's most exclusive privateschoolsquite a b i t more money than most l i l y w h i t e suburbs pay to educate their o w n . Furthermore, in Philadelphia and elsewhere the drive f o rschool desegregation is tending to t u r n segregation upside d o w n , w i t h more and more w h i t e children taken out of public school, and more andmore desegregated public schools getting to bealmost 100 percent Negro. H o w w i l l this affect thewillingness of the w h i t e population, w h i c h carries some 95 percent of the local tax load, to payincreased taxes f o r better schools that f e w oftheir o w n w h i t e children w i l l be attending?Nonwhites need more human contact with therest of the community. The primary cause f o r thetrouble i n Watts was not that the housing i nWatts is so bad (it isn't; not so long ago Watts wasa f a i r l y good middle-class w h i t e neighborhood].I t was not because the area is overcrowded (itisn't; the density i n Watts is not much more than20 per acre). The p r i m a r y cause of the trouble i nWatts is the f a c t that i t had been a l l o w e d to become an island apart. N o t enough people outsidehad any contact w i t h their f e l l o w citizens walledoff inside W a t t s . So it took a riot that cost $40m i l l i o n and 34 dead to make outsiders realize thatWatts had no good hospital f o r 87,000 people, nomodern schools f o r more than 30,000 children, nomovie house, only one public swimming pool andalmost no public transportation to let people getto the kind of jobs they could hold. No w o n d e r 30percent of a l l the job seekers i n Watts are unemployed; no wonder its residents f e l t forgotten,bitter and almost hopeless.But most of all, poor nonwhitesdesperatelyneed more money, more jobs and more job opportunities, particularly more jobs f o r male heads

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

77

of families and f o r young people, both boys and

girls. Everybody k n o w s that unemploymentamong nonwhites is more than t w i c e as heavy asamong whites, averaging out to 8.2 percent, buttoo f e w people seem to understand the peculiarpattern hidden behind the 8.2 percent averagea pattern w h i c h helps explain the bitterness ofNegro youth, and also accentuates the matriachal character of Negro home l i f e w h i c h , inturn, accentuates the school problem of poorNegro children. A n unemployment rate of 8.2percent is bad enough, but what the "average"conceals is a jobless rate that o f t e n exceeds 30percent among some of the nonwhites most inneed of jobs.Unemployment among college-educated Negroes is actually much less than among collegeeducated whites, because so many companies aremaking a special e f f o r t to f i n d qualified nonwhitesto hire. Unemployment among middle-class Negroes has to be small almost by definition (otherwise they could not enjoy middle-class incomes);unemployment among adult Negroes w i t h lessthan a grade school education is also l o w , probably because they seem w i l l i n g to take menialjobs that nobody else wants. A n d one-third moreNegro women than w h i t e have jobs outside thehomedespite a 34 percent unemployment rateamong teen-age Negro girls (three times the u n employment rate among teen-age w h i t e girls).In other w o r d s : Negro unemployment is concentrated among Negro men w h o were highschool dropouts, and is heaviest of all amongyoung Negro men, w h o are most likely to haveyoung children. I n big city slums, their unemployment rate o f t e n runs higher than 30 percent.A tragic consequence of this unemploymentpattern is that the No. 1 breadwinner in too manyslum-trapped n o n w h i t e families is a w o r k i n gmother, and in some 40 percent of these poor f a m ilies there is no man at all because the w o r k i n gis either deserted or unwed (in Harlem 43.4 percent of the c h i l d r e n are illegitimate). So there isno one at home a l l day to care f o r and bring upthe children. O f a l l Negro children, 36 percentlive i n broken homes; i n the slums this percentageis much higher.W h a t a l l this adds up to is that the hard-coreproblem of n o n w h i t e segregation is very largely

a poverty problem, and i t cannot be solved u n t i l

employers, labor unions and the government(mostly federal) w o r k out a good w a y to let nonwhites escape f r o m poverty and male unemployment. Says Philadelphia's Joseph V . Baker: " ANegro does not need a college degree to put gasoline in an empty tank, or to t u r n a w r e n c h asf a r as the threads have been cut, or to collecttickets on trains."Desegregation, in the sense of l i v i n g next doorto w h i t e neighbors, is mostly f o r upper- andmiddle-class nonwhites. For the great mass ofpoor nonwhites, desegregation means m o s t l y achance to escape f r o m poverty, slum housing andmale unemployment, plus a chance f o r better education to help their children w o r k their w a y up.No local government can solve a l l the problemsof the n o n w h i t e poor, but f e w of their problemsare l i k e l y to be solved unless and u n t i l local governments take an active part in their solution. Forexample and specifically: Only local governments can deflate the bootleg price of slum housing by code enforcementa n d / o r taxation. Dean Abrams' block-by-blockresearch shows that in Philadelphia, vigorouscode enforcement has so deflated central-cityhousing prices there that a large percentage of the14,400 r o w houses now vacant can be bought (orput) i n decent move-in c o n d i t i o n f o r $4,000 cashor less. (Compare this w i t h an average cost of$20,500 f o r new public housing, and $12,300 n o wbudgeted by the Housing A u t h o r i t y to buy unitsand do them over completely, regardless of h o wm u c h f i x i n g up they really need.) I f F H A or otherspecial financing is made available, this $4,000cost w o u l d make i t possible f o r even relief clients,black or white, to buy or lease decent used homes.Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has been f e a r f u lthat strict code enforcement m i g h t leave the10,000 families homeless, and i n N e w York themayor's special housing adviser declared i n 1961that "no amount of code enforcement can stopthe spread of slums unless and u n t i l the profit istaken out of slums by taxation."* Only local governments can locate some of

Poverty helps create urban ghettos,

but it isn't the onlyvillain. Segregatedsuburbs are chillytoward the middleclass members ofracial minorities,who could affordto move out of theghettos. Then too,some don't want to.

their o w n employment centers where they w i l l

be easy f o r the n o n w h i t e poor to reach. Only local governments can tear d o w n the obsolete and decaying school buildings f o u n d i nmost nonwhite slums, and replace them w i t h upto-date plants less likely to encourage high schooldropouts (the average n o n w h i t e boy quits schoolafter the ninth grade). Only the local government, w i t h financial support f r o m Washington, can provide the nurseryschools and the day-care centers needed to keepthe preschool slum children of broken homes andw o r k i n g mothers off the streets, giving them someof the care, attention and mental stimulation m i d dle-class children get f r o m their families, so theseslum children w i l l be ready to keep up w i t h theirclasses when they reach school age. This k i n d ofneed is already met by the state i n Russia (anothercase where most mothers w o r k outside the home)by including day-care centers, playgrounds, nursery schools and p r i m a r y schools in the center ofevery new apartment block. I n this respect i t ishigh time f o r American cities to catch up w i t hRussian ones. I n N e w York, 80 percent of the600,000 relief recipients whose support costslocal, state a n d / o r federal taxpayers $700,000 ayear belong to no-male-breadwinner families. Only the local government can provide or encourage the k i n d of bus or jitney service poor nonwhites need to get f r o m where they live to jobsthey can h o l d . Local government can provide neighborhoodcenters to help slum owners w h o w a n t to i m prove their property understand and take advantage of a l l the various state, federal and foundation grants and aids available to them. Local governments can pressure the state tostop f o r c i n g them to discourage and penalize i m provements w i t h increased assessments andtaxes. (Personal interview surveys i n N e w a r k andelsewhere make it clear that fear of higher assessments is a prime reason w h y slum property o w n ers w o n ' t spend money to maintain or improvetheir properties.) Finally, the job needs of the n o n w h i t e poor w i l lnot soon be met u n t i l local government cooperates i n attracting and encouraging not just highwage industries but also the k i n d of lower-wageindustries and services i n w h i c h u n s k i l l e d w o r k ers could expect to f i i n d steady jobs.Racial segregation is the w o r s t k i n d of segregat i o n because i t is so rigid, so hopeless and soh u m i l i a t i n g ; but we deplore a l l one-class neighborhoods big enough to segregate their peoplef r o m the larger community.Suburbia is the great segregator, segregatingnot only white f r o m nonwhite but also the lowermiddle-class f r o m the middle-middle-class, andthe middle-middle-class f r o m the upper-middleclass and the wealthy. We t h i n k this is as bad f o r

those w h o are segregated in as f o r those w h o are

seggregated out. For example, i t makes i t harderfor those w h o are segregated in to employ thek i n d and variety of help they need, w h i l e at thesame time making i t harder f o r many of those w h oare segregated out to get the kind of service jobsthey need and could fill.Small enclaves of people w i t h the same background and about the same income are perfectlynatural and no problem at a l l ; there is no reasonwhy millionaires should live next door to reliefclients, and no reason w h y relief clients shouldwant to live between millionaires. But there aremany good reasons w h y rich and poor, w h i t e andnonwhite should live close enough together tok n o w how the other half lives, and to share thecommunity of l i f e and the openness of opportunity whose sharing is the first essential o f urbanism. Big one-class or one-race neighborhoodsfrustrate ease of contact and ease of accesse; theydeny variety, opportunity and the exchange ofservices; and the bigger the one-class or one-raceghetto, the more complete the f r u s t r a t i o n anddenial.M i d d l e - and upper-income families pay i n moreways than one f o r their flight f r o m the city to oneclass enclaves in the suburbs. They pay i n traveltime and a l l the extra hours they spend gettingto and f r o m the center. They pay i n lost leisure,doing household chores they could otherwise findsomeone else to do. They pay i n loss of varietyand stimulation because they live too f a r f r o mtown. (Says the f o r m e r A I A president: "Oneclass neighborhoods are just plain dull.") A n dthey pay in higher prices and heavier state andfederal taxes f o r supporting on relief m i l l i o n s ofpeople w h o , i n a better-integrated metropolitansociety, might be self-supporting and helping tomeet the labor shortage and up the gross nationalproduct in our full-employment economy.It is more than a coincidence that the mostunderprivileged people i n urban A m e r i c a mustalso be the most heavily subsidized (in Philadelphia, f o r example, 80 percent of the relief clientsare n o n w h i t e ) .

r-*

\--: .

The city that never happenedso far

Unfortunately, nobody has ever seen or experienced a city that comes anywherenear measuring up to today's potential. Nobody has ever seen or experienced a reallygood citya city that takes f u l l advantage of today's better technology, design and planning. Nobody has ever seen a city planned so almost everybody could walk to work inless time than it takes to get there now by car, train or subway. Nobody has even seena city planned for all the convenience and economy of three dimensions instead of two.Nobody has ever seen a city where f u l l utilization of the center at high density letsthe people who prefer low density enjoy it close to town. Nobody has seen a citywhose best close-in locations are not cluttered with obsolete and inadequate old buildings that should have been torn down long agoold buildings that live on and on onlybecause urban decay is now subsidized by underassessing and undertaxing obsolescentproperties. Nobody in our generation has seen a city whose busy streets are notchoked with parked (and moving) cars; or a city whose air is good to breathe andwhose water is good to swim in. Nobody has seen a city that provides plenty ofusable open space for f u n and recreation where open space is most needed; where allthe children could safely play outdoors within two blocks of homeoften withouteven leaving their own building. Nobody realizes that with today's technology sucha city could cost much less to live and work in than the anachronisms that urbanAmericans live in today. What's wrong with today's cities could be cured a lot fasterif people could be given a better understanding and a clearer vision of what kind of cityto demand and insist on getting. Computers can now predict quickly and quite correctly all the effects of changed planning, zoning, transit and highways. This is animportant development that should be a great help to city planners and city officialsin choosing wisely between alternative programs, but it cannot close the communications gap between planners, with their eyes fixed on the future, and average citizens,with their understanding stuck in the past. Perhaps what our cities need now is anew Hugh Ferris to give their citizens a fresh vision of what tomorrow's cities andtomorrow's city living could and should be like.80

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

Planning the Powder Room

BY DENISE SCOTT BROWNArchitects, like dentists, doctorsand, to some extent, lawyers, automechanics and TV repair men,must frequently depend on theircolleagues for those very serviceswhich they normally render toothers. We as architects share withthe public the experience of living,working, sheltering and occasionally suffering in the handiworks ofother architects. This provides usThe author: Mrs. Brown is actingassociate professor, School ofArchitecture and Urban Planning,University of California, Los Angeles. Sketches are by ThomasHutchens.

w i t h a built-in feedback of experience on which to base our own design. In addition to this, we canexpect some feedback from thegeneral public. For example, I heardof an Italian architect on an inspection visit to a recently completedhousing project he had designed.On the stairs he met a woman carrying a large basket of wet wash upto the roof where he had put thedrying lines. "Are you the architect?" She asked threateningly."No," he lied, and fled.LAOiCS

But there are some areas where,

in the nature of our society, personal experience is impossible forthe male architect, and feedbackfrom the public unlikely. Such anarea is the ladies' powder room. Ihave long had this problem in mind.As I have used these facilities inoffice buildings, theaters, academicbuildings and drive-ins throughoutthe land, I have become convincedthat the architect's lack of personalexperience and involvement inwhat he is planning constitutes areal problem herethe more sosince I imagine he is unaware of it.It seems that I am in a peculiar position as architect, city planner andwoman to be of help to my colleagues seeking practical information on powder room design of atype not found in the GraphicStandards.But a few preliminaries. First,this is a delicate subject. On thesecond day of my first office experience during the summer vacationbetween high school and college,my employer (it was a small office)started to initiate me in the mysteries of bathroom facilities. Hehad an old book with engravedillustrations of various toilet bowls(which he called "lavvies") of atype I had never seen before, withfloral decorations inside and out. Iformed the impression then thatarchitects are an uninhibited butstrangely old-fashioned lot. However, I shall endeavor here to combine the delicacy of a lady with thedirectness of a confirmed and unrecalcitrant functionalist of the 1930stype. In this I shall have as mymodel an elegant and honored antecedent, who, writing for a differentera on another aspect of the sametopic, managed to combine the refinement of a gentleman with the1

straight-shooting clarity, vision and

sense of responsibility expected ofthe highest-caliber professional.Second, I shall not be talking ofesthetics. I shall not even bring upthe beauties of the view of Philadelphia's City Hall and the latelamented Furness office building,which one had from the ladies'room of Burnham's Wanamakerstore; nor the view of New Yorkfrom the ladies' room in the Regional Plan Association offices inthe Herald Tribune Building. Weare dealing with sterner stuff.

1Nor is our concern here the difference of cultural patterns: of theEnglish, for example, whose toiletpartitions are about 18 incheshigher and 12 inches lower thanthose in Americaleaving thevisiting English woman with astrange sensation of isolated vulnerability. Or the Italian with integrated (male and female) facilities.Or the Scandinavian with, at times,no doors. Or the grim ridiculousness of the South African apartheidlaws which require, in a publicbuilding, separate male and femalefacilities for each racial group. Northe strange American custom ofproviding neither sign nor lock, sothat American ladies, before taking possession of a toilet booth,Chic Sale The Specialist. Cnrmel California: The Specialist Publishing Company. 1020.1

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

81

must either push the door or peek

under it.We shall be dealing primarilywith a logistics and storage problem. The main question: what to dowith the coat? And secondarily thehandbag and/or gloves, book pileand shopping bag, and on occasionshat and umbrella. And the whole isaggravated by the fact that each ofthe sequence of operations performed in the powder room requires a different relation of alady's possessions to her personand involves, therefore, a differentstorage problem.I have nothing against the accommodations of the normal toiletbooth. Those little spring-backpackage racks are suitable for allexcept the most lightweight packages (or the A I A JOURNALbut ifyou took it with you, you wouldprobably be reading it, anyway)and serve the added function ofbarring the door after the bolt hascome off. And the hooks are adequate. But why do architects believe that that is the only spot inthe ladies' room where a lady needsto hang up her coat and store herpossessions? What must she dowith the coat when she is washingand tidying up? Put it back on? A nelementary analysis will show thatthere should be at least as manycoat hooks outside the toilet boothsas there are inside, and probablymore. And I suggest that wherethere is a space shortage or a circulation problem, the outsides of the

NX

toilet doors might do very well.

Storage of the other pertinalia presents an even harder problem.Some you can't hang on a hook,some are precious and some youneed with you. You can't balancethem on the sink rim; it's too narrow, and even where sinks are ofthe inset type, the surrounds areusually too small and often wet.Umbrellas are even worse. A ladywith an umbrella sticking out atright angles from her person as shewashes is a menace. The wholeproblem could be neatly solved bytwo shelves, one above and one below the sink; and by a hook hang82

AIA JOURNAL/ APRIL 1967

ing under the top shelf at the intersinkniation. It is essential that theumbrella stay in sight during allpowder room operations, lest somevisually deprived soul mistake your$12, stainless steel-tipped, malaccahandled Bonwit for her $2 Woolworth.Now we move to the mirror. Thisshould involve a move, even thoughsubsequent exit patterns (includingcoat-retrieval from the back of thetoilet door or other suitable location) may require several extrasteps and some cross-circulation.But ladies should not keep otherladies from washing their hands,while they occupy the sink to powder their noses. And face powderin the sink bowl is unesthetic.At this point the make-up outfit,thus the handbag, must be beforeone, on a shelf not Jess than 12inches wide. (Who are the sadistswho provide a standard ladies'room mirror shelf 4 inches wide?)And so that one's possessions donot spread horizontally along theshelf, obscuring the view for otherladies, a second, lower shelf shouldbe provided for the pile of books(the shopping bag, at this point, canprobably stand on the floor) andbeneath that, a row of hooks justfor safety's sake. While we're onthe subject of mirrors, this oneshould be long horizontally, preferably related in foot run by someyet-to-be-empirically-determinedmathematical identity to the totalnumber of sinks provided. (We architects are just going to have tolearn to use the new tools and putan end to intuitive guesswork.)This should mathematically ensurethat enough ladies get to see enoughof themselves; but just in case thecomputer errs, a slight ramp up, asin a theater, should be provided, sothat tall ladies can see themselvesover the heads of short ladies.Then there is need for a secondmirrora vertical one, near theexit, but with room enough for amiddle-distance view. It is nothingshort of cruelty to expect a lady toleave the powder room without amiddle-distance, full-length viewof herself. (While we are on thesubject, architects who providemirrors in elevators do a kindnessto nervous ladiesand gentlemen?going for interviews.)So now we have covered thestorage problem, and suggestedthat in dealing with it adequatelywe may aggravate the already-difficult circulation problem. But circulation is an architect's problem. I'msure this can be dealt with by themale professional without advicefrom me.

What about types of facility? I

think one general rule applies (possibly to men too). The powder roomis not the time or place to startexploring. In this area we are allchildren of tradition, and feel happiest with what we know. I am reminded of an experience I had i n apublic institution somewhere in theland, whose only feature to remainin my memory was its extraordinary lavatory (fr. L. lavare, towash) arrangements. A circularbowl, perhaps 60 inches in diameter, with an obvious water sourceat its center and no visible meansof activating it, stood at waistheight in the center of the room.Search finally revealed a ring footbar which, when pressed, gave riseto a ring of water jets. These at nopoint on their perimeter providedsufficient water to cover the palmof the hand. Was one, I wondered,intended to circulate around thebowl in order to gain the necessarysupply? Visions arose in my mindof a mystic rite, a combination ofMaypole celebration and Scottishsword dance, as circulating ladiesperform the ritual hand-washing,alternating, the while, betweenjumping on the footbar and overeach other's possessions.Do they, I wondered, have a similar facility in the men's room? Orhave they provided something moreritually suitable, in the nature of atrough or well?Then for the driers. Again, youcan't teach an old dog new tricks.There is no way for a lady to dryher face with one of those hot-airdriers without letting the watertrickle down her neck. Also, rubbing your hands fast for minutes onend is boring. A n d if the drierbreaks down and the towel supplyhas been abolished, there you are.Don't let anyone tell you they prevent chapping. They don't. No. thetraditional paper towel is best. Onefunction the hot-air drier can perform very well, however, is towarm up your winter boots.Now here is a trickier matter.There is a fixture (devised, nodoubt, by a lunatic scientist) calledthe "female urinal." I have pondered about this contraption and Icannot see its advantages. I cannoteven think of a way in which a ladycould use it at all, let alone withthe speed and convenience whichits masculine namesake affords theother half of the population.These are, of course, personalopinions, but from a small amountof empirical researchi.e., fromnoting the exclamations of surpriseand astonishment, and the effortsto acquire alternative traditional

accommodations where possible,

from other powder room usersIwould assure you that these unfathomable objects are viewed withsuspicion by womankind in general(especially those under 6 and

over 30) and I believe I can guarantee that where there is a choice,these booths will be the least-usedin the room. The female urinal (andhere I speak from experience ofboth) is somewhat less convenientthan the Asian squathole.Then there is the question ofshowers. In Italy they provide hotshowers in the gasoline stationrestrooms. This helps to sell gasoline to tourists. In all schools ofarchitecture there should be provided a hot shower in the ladies'powder roomfor how can a girlbe expected to charette for threedays and three nights without restif she cannot even have a shower?And this is what we expect. Failingthis, and at an absolute minimum,we should provide at least one enlarged toilet booth containing a toilet and a sink with hot and coldwater. This should be a standardprovision in all ladies' washrooms,to allow for the sometimes necessary private ablutions of womenand children.So much for the detail arrangements of the actual powder room.Somewhere i n my mind I have anuneasy feeling that perhaps this isnot a problem handled by architects at all. They merely supply acertain amount of space based ona rule-of-thumb allowance per person, or possibly per sales-foot, ofthe order:

where x is total towei-rail space,

and z is the number you firstthought of.Perhaps, in other words, "they"(whoever they areSMERSH perhaps) supply it all ready-made.Well, i f that is the case, architects,where is your pride? Only by involving yourself deeply in thetechnico-industrial manufacturingprocesses of the 20th century,will you be able to keep "them"responsive to the human needs of

human beings (in this case, women). Powder rooms are for people.There are a few other problems,perhaps of a type more innatelyinteresting to architects, whichmay be dealt with in passing. Thefirst of these is the locational problem: How do you find it? Architectsshould remember that this is a particular problem in the case of alady, since she may not ask. (Yetthe solution is not to make it soobvious that you cannot miss it,even when not searching. For i nthat case, a true lady will not useit.) I feel that in the game of huntthe-toilet, a lady with a professional education in architectureand city planning has a distinctadvantage over her sisters. Forthere are certain laws, which, consciously or unconsciously, designers follow. These are:1. FunctionalismThis means it'slikely to be next to the men's, behind the elevators. (But i f it's anInternational-Style house you're in,it's that thing like a ship's funnelset in the plate glass window andopening off the patio.)2. SymmetryIfthe men's is 100yards down the corridor to theright third door on your left, thenthe women's is 100 yards down thecorridor to the left third door onyour right. Or i f the men's is at thesecond, fourth, sixth and eighthhalf-landing on the escape stair,then the women's is at the third,fifth, seventh and ninth. Don't trythe first floor. There won't be one.In fact, don't trust this law too implicitly, since some masculine domains have strange, undecipherable laws of symmetry such as aladies' room for every three-andone-third gentlemen's rooms untilthe fourth floor, and thereafter, oneevery four floors. In this case onemust ask, since it would requiretoo much walking to break thecode.3. Symbolism and affective propertiesToilets are likely to be foundin places that look reticent and private, such as crannies under thestairs, behind the woodshed, or, i nItaly, quite informally, off smallalleyways. This too can be deceptive. If a building offers no publicfacility but you are sure there mustbe one for the staff somewhere,look in a large, public space for asmall, nameless door, which can belocked from the outside and whichresembles a cleaner's closet. Thatwill be it. But it w i l l be locked.I am in favor of maximum use byarchitects of such locational communications, rather than the dependence on signs. It is so muchmore subtle. But, unfortunately,

they alone will not be sufficient.

For example even such simple algorithms as we have outlined willnot be retained in the minds ofsome people, notably academicians,when they have something else ontheir minds. So considerable confusion w i l l occur, and difficult socialsituations of the "Fancy-meetingyou - here - Professor - Abernathy"sort. Hence heraldic amplificationof the locational pattern is required.Simple signs saying Women orMen are best. Ladies and Gentlemen is too "tasteful." And so isPowder Room, and inaccurate aswell, being descriptive of only onein a sequence of operations. Shunthe corny. A Latin-American friendof mine (male gender) was oncefaced, in a nautical London pub,with the signs "gulls" and "buoys."After puzzling a moment, he determinedly entered the "gulls." Toovercome the language barrier,those little silhouettes of 18th century aristocrats which one seestacked to the door in hamburgerpalaces with aspirations are inoffensive, and would be useful i fthere was ever a language problem.

IIn Europe this problem has had tobe tackled really seriously. It is notnecessary to learn to ask f o r thepowder room in 15 different languages, since most nations use, i naddition to their own signs, theacronym WC or the symbol 00.However, I did hear of an interesting new attempt at a simple lavatory lingua franca, obviously contemporary with the attempts tointernationalize and standardize allEuropean traffic signals. It consisted of a combination sign, a trianglein a circle, thusto indicate,generically, "restrooms."Thenwhen the prospective user has beenbrought closer to hand, the signseparates out for male and female.Very neat. Just what you need, Ithought. A simple language of basicforms, able to be shared by everyone, no matter what tongue. ThenI got to pondering. And I leave youwith my puzzle: When those signsseparate out, which is which?

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

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How to Makethe Mostof Your Models

A photographer offersa technique within the graspof any

office.

Seeing the relationship of a b u i l d i n g to its natural and man-made environment is a matter of i n creasingly critical importance. Architects f o r alltheir visual literacy and their deep concern f o rthe interplay of buildings and the spaces betweenthem are not always free of b l i n d spots i n t r y i n gto envisage this relationship. For clients and thepublic, the problem is perhaps greater.A n y aids f o r the visualization of a building i nits surroundings, therefore, are welcome to thecause of urban architecture. Such aids do existand are used by numerous architects. One is amodel of the proposed project surrounded bymodels of w h a t already exists i n the project area.A n o t h e r device uses a detailed model of the proposed b u i l d i n g and, w i t h some clever but hardlycomplicated photographic maneuverings, produces an amazingly realistic result. T h i s lattermethod is employed by a Jersey City, N e w Jersey,photographer, Louis Checkman, and here is w h a the does: He takes a picture f r o m Green Street, say, looking t o w a r d the Maple Street site. Then he recordstwo measurementsthe distance f r o m the camera to the site o f the planned building and theheight f r o m street level to the camera lens. By scaling the t w o dimensions on the model ofthe proposed building, he establishes a cameravantage point f o r a photograph of the model. He places the p r i n t of the model on an enlargereasel and the negative of the site v i e w i n the enlarger. He projects the site v i e w to the modelprint, adjusting the scale of the site image to that84

A I A JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

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Trying out a new building in its neighborhoodAcross page is of model of

Cadman Plaza, by Whittlesey & Conklin, shown in a mock-up environment(middle) and in its actual BrooklynHeights surroundings. At top of thispage is a model of Edward DurellStone's Huntington Hartford Galleryin its Columbus Circle setting, and atbottom is Kelly & Gruzen's CentralCity, the model integrated with anaerial view of Manhattan. Next page,the Lower Manhattan plan of Harrison & Abramovitz and an urban renewal scheme of James RaymondMowry, AIA, for Binghamton, NewYork. Latter two model presentationsshow relationship of proposed buildings (in white) with existing structures (in gray).

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of the model, and makes a print on single-weight

paper. He then mounts the p r i n t of the model on rigidcardboard and c a r e f u l l y cuts the site v i e w wherethe building meets the sky and horizon. Next, he c a r e f u l l y cements the site print to themounted model p r i n t and f r o m this paste-upmakes a copy negative. The final p r i n t is madef r o m this copy negative, and the result is a v i e wof the b u i l d i n g on Maple Street f r o m GreenStreet, w e l l before a spade of soil has been turnedat the site.The effect is a k i n d of reality before the event.

The technique requires, of course, a sophisticated, professionally made model. Also valuablein the study of proposed buildings' relationshipsw i t h the spaces and masses around them is themodel technique of producing existing buildingsto scale and roughing i n the proposed structuresto indicate height, size and placement. No attemptis made to indicate actual architectural design.Such models are made i n a number of architectural offices. Examples of both techniques wereseen i n an architectural photography exhibit assembled as a public service by Norman A d l e rAssociates of Binghamton, N e w York.

CREATIVE COST CONTROL

The Applicable,Adaptable Enclosure MethodBY JOHN R. DIEHL, A I AThe principles, rules and advantages of the enclosure method ofcost control are explained by aPrinceton, New Jersey, architectwho has used the method in allstages of design for more than adecade. He has found it to be themost reliable method, one easily related to floor area requirements andbudget limitations, and a valuableaid in conceptual design. This article is adapted from "Creative Control of Building Costs," the forthcoming McGraw-Hill book.Nothing can shroud the naked truthof bid tabulations. When the tabulation's revelation is painful, thearchitect might be inclined to assure himself that he had, after all,read, digested and done all hecould. But self-assurance cannotdiminish the cold realization thatthe program is too large or toosmall for its budget, a realizationwhich, at the bid stage, has arrivedtoo late.Architects, builders, bankers,brokers and ownersevery operative involved with a proposedstructurerisks possibly more onthe accuracy of preconstructioncost estimates than on any othergroup of unknown factors encountered in construction. The methodsof cost prediction range from themost involved and intricate systems to ludicrous schemes rootedin superstition and cynicism.Some knowing persons hold thatthe accuracy of early cost prediction methods bears little relation tothe complexity or degree of detailinvolved in the preparation of an"estimate." And who would denythe foolishness of analyzing thecost of flemish bond at a time whenit is not known whether the wallwill contain bricks?I remain impressed by the oftquoted advice, given half in jest bythe late, noted architect, HarveyWiley Corbett, who said the mostconvenient index of building construction cost is the price of beefsteak. Few architects will risk theconsequences of budget overrun on

a cost control basis such as this, but

many are also acutely aware thatthe most elaborate and sophisticated estimating procedures arelikely to be even less helpful in theearly design stages.It is indeed one thing to anticipate a wide difference in the pricesbid by various contractors for theconstruction of a proposed buildingso completely described in its documents that estimators can countvirtually every nail, and quite another to expect a designer to predict costs with greater accuracy ata time when a blank sheet of drawing paper lies before him. Yet it isat this point that the architectmakes decisions most vitally affecting his client's budget.More often than not, in fact, construction cost limitations are seteven before the design problemsare fully known. Regardless of thistechnical dilemma, constructioncosts are necessarily controlled inthe predesign stages, a fact that accommodates the basis upon whichmost building enterprises are undertaken. So whether easily accepted or not, it is clear that architects are elected to bear certainadded economic responsibilitiesthat compound the cost predictionproblems inherent in design.Design Is a Special CaseProblems of cost projection varywith different purposes; knownprocedures match the differentproblems only approximately andin varying degrees. The real estateappraiser employs methods quitedifferent from those of the contractestimator or financial planner.Building design is a special case, itsconditions fitting none of the morewidely used cost estimating systems.The importance of cost prediction to rational decisions in the selection of the materials and methods of construction is understoodto be fundamental to architecture.But it is not easily accomplishedduring the design, for none of themore analytical methods of costprojection can be employed by the

architect until his work is finished.

It is uneconomical to produce theseveral complete designs for comparative evaluation by quantitytake-off and pricing methods.To determine the probable costof a building that has already beendesigned and adequately documented, an estimator will mostlikely separate the project into construction operations and price material separately from labor in theunits by which they are normallypurchased. Cubic feet of sand andgravel would be priced on a different market from carpentry labor,etc. Sensitive and accurate thoughit may be for the builder, themethod is relatively useless to thedesigner who must predict outcomebefore there are such quantities toconsider.The design process itself seemsto allow the possibility of a "solution" on the first trialthe economic structure of the professionassumes this. At any rate, mostarchitects approach each designstudy as potentially the final one.To accomplish this obviously requires of the designer an act of synthesis that takes construction costsinto account along with the otherdesign considerations. Since eventhe most creative persons are obligated to control inductive thoughtby standards which are derived analytically, designers in all fieldshave developed various abstractdevices to guide their thoughts, i n cluding those concerning costs,along rational and realistic routesthrough the maze of alternativespresented by their imaginations.Costs in Terms of FunctionA statistical approach is automatically taken on quantitativematters to afford prediction of effect without requiring immediateempirical data as the basis for eachdecision. Like other quantitativeelements, cost is reduced, often intuitively, to units that can be expressed in terms of function andperformance in order to economizeon the mental process. Thus designers are prone to talk of "tons"AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

87

of refrigeration, "footcandles" oflight, "square feet" of floor area,"pounds of load" supported perunit of material, etc.The architectural designer wantsto know the cost of a material inits functional place, not merely itsprice on the market. Most helpfulto him is the total cost of an element of structure as it will exist inhis building, including labor, material and builders' charges. Hewould like this information interms of such units as square feetof surface and lineal feet of span orlength, the measures of his ownwork.He can make choices betweenfloor finishes by comparing the totalin-place cost of one material withanother. He can select a method offloor construction by comparing thecombined in-place cost (per unit offloor surface) of all components ofvarious floor systems. In order toso compare, he collects cost information from a variety of sourcesand converts it to statistics in hisown form. In this way each architect tends to develop a personalcost "vocabulary."Even formal construction costestimates of completed designwork prepared by architects are usually derived by this procedure,often referred to as the "In-placeCost Method of Estimating." A l though the actual cost informationupon which this procedure is ultimately based must come fromstandard quantity surveying andpricing methods, seldom does thearchitect himself analyze costs interms of market units. He never estimates the cost of materials separately from the cost of labor, sincehe neither buys and sells buildingmaterials nor hires and supervisesconstruction labor.He tries to maintain a comprehensive notion of the total value orcost of construction. He likes thevantage point that gives an objective view of the product togetherwith its parts.He has seen the products of hisown design completed; he knowshow they have performed; he hasfound ou what they have cost andhas analyzed the effects of their alternatives. Designers are awarethat approaching cost in .terms ofthe units of function or effective88

AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

nesshow much wall, to do what,

for how much moneyrelates performance to price directly and simplifies the evaluation of alternatives.Predicting costs by the in-placemethod, certainly more convenientfor the designer than some othersystems, becomes noticably morereliable when supported by detailed analysis. The cost of a wallis the sum of the costs of its components, and the determination ofthe latter, again, is possible only inthe more advanced stages of design. The more detailed the analysisof a design, the more design information must have been available.The in-place method is thereforefound to be of greatest value in theintermediate stages of design, afterconceptual work and before detailed design.Early Procedure Still NeededBut the architect is still left without the tool he needs most: a reliable procedure for quick cost comparison on which to base earlydecisions and reduce costly trialand error. This need leads to theuniversal use of even more abstractcost units. Most elementary ofthese, and perhaps the most widelyused throughout the building industry for rule-of-thumb estimating,appraising and programming purposes, is cost per square foot offloor area.The reasons for the popularity ofthis unit are obvious. Cost is expressed in terms of floor spacewhich is recognized as the primaryfunctional quantity of most buildings, and floor area is easily andquickly measured either on drawings, in existing buildings or evenprojected as an abstract quantity.The proposer of a building maywell have a notion of the amountof floor space required long beforeany thought has been given to theconfiguration of the structure.By guessing at a price per squarefoot, construction budgets are often established before the architectis consulted. The architect himselfgenerally makes extensive use ofthis convenient unit of cost, mostparticularly in the schematic stage.Be this as it may, it does not f o l low that because the quantity ofspace (floor area) is some measureof a building's utility, the cost ofthe building w i l l be directly, oreven closely, related to this quantity. The fact that it is not will berecognized immediately upon observing that floor area costs rangedin 1966 from less than $8 per squarefoot for simple structures to morethan $40 for highly subdivided and

expensively equipped buildings.

In addition, wide discrepanciesare introduced because of variations in accepted standard definitions of measurable floor area. Depending on many factors of design,function and the method of measure, one idea of the floor area of agiven building may exceed anotherby 100 percent or more.Most experts agree that predicting construction costs by the probable price of a square foot of floorarea is, at best, a sketchy procedurewhich i f not accompanied by themost cautious and experiencedjudgment can be dangerous. Inshort, the method has not fulfilledthe architect's need for cost control.Another statistical method longapplied to early cost prediction i n volves the measurement of the geometric volume of buildings. Whileperhaps both less sensitive andmore complex in procedure thanthe floor area method, this systemalso chooses its units in terms ofbuilding space. But since spacemeasured by volume is, for obviousreasons, less directly related to utility or function than is floor area,and since the same disadvantagespertain, the method is now considered by many to be inferior.A Method Gaining in UseAlthough not so widely used asthe preceding examples of statistical estimating, the use of units ofenclosure has been gaining acceptance. This newer approach to earlycost prediction requires slightlymore complex procedures than thefloor area method but no more sothan in the measurement of cubiccontents. Enclosure unit is both amore sensitive and a more accuratemethod than the other two. It alsohas the advantage of being applicable at almost any stage of designand is adaptable to cost analysis invarying degrees of detail.The procedure is to collect costdata in terms of units of enclosuresurface, i.e., square feet or squareyards of exterior walls, partitions,floors, roof, etc. These units varydeterminately with respect to thefunctional units of building spaceon the one hand, and to the quantities of construction materials onthe other. For practical purposes itmay be assumed that the bulk ofmaterials and labor employed in abuilding is actually represented byits enclosure. If this is I rue, we havea unit of measure that is highly sensitive to variations in not only theamounts and, therefore, the costsof labor and materials representedby a given design, but one which is

also sensitive to variations in the

amount of building space provided.The convenience of this methodis easily demonstrated. Given sufficient statistical information and aknowledge of construction cost factors, a designer can quickly correlate cost with performance information for the solution of a specificproblem. For example, an architectworking on the design of a floorplan with enclosure costs in mindknows constantly how much moneyhe is spending, virtually, as hedraws lines indicating walls andpartitions.As with floor area units, however, those using this method mustunderstand that a line representing3 lineal feet of partition, 9 feet high,involves not only certain quantitiesof several materials and types oflabor but also represents pricesthat vary independently of thequantities. The extent of this variation must be known or assumed ifspecific construction systems are tobe compared.Herein lies the need for the designer's understanding of the various factors affecting the cost ofconstruction. Herein also lies another advantage of the system: Itcan be expanded i n later stages ofdesign to become in-place cost estimating. For overall cost control,however, necessary corrections ofthis type tend to be smaller than thenormal variations of other unitsand are much more readily accommodated.In my own architectural practice,I have used this method of cost prediction in all stages of design overthe past 12 years. The projectsranged from simple residentialalterations to multibuilding complexes costing more than $20 million, from simple open structures tohighly subdivided and complexhospitals. Drawings for numerousother projects as well as literallyhundreds of scheme variationshave been analyzed by the enclosure method.Variation Not So WideAdjusted to 1965 dollars, the actual costs of completed projects inthis experience ranged from a lowof $3.60 to a high of $9.30 persquare foot of total enclosure area.This figure is derived by dividingthe sum of all related constructionexpenditures by the total combinedarea of all floors, roofs, walls, partitions and similar items of enclosure. It will be noted that these unitcosts vary upward to approximately 2.6 times the low figurecompared with a conservatively estimated normal variation in floor

area unit costs of more than 5 times.

In other words, buildings varyin cost per square foot of floor areaon the order of from $8 to $40,while enclosure unit costs varyonly half as muchand no attemptwas made to correct for inordinately disparate examples.The mensuration is simpleenough. The area of planes passingthrough and parallel to each element of enclosure is measured insquare feet. An enclosure elementis taken to be the sum of its components and may be any exteriorwall, partition or interior wall, roofor the like. The enclosure area represented by a floor system, for example, is expressed as the area of asingle plane, whether or not thesystem includes separate ceilingand deck elements. Similarly, wallsand partitions are measured as having a single surface; both faces areincluded i n the one measurement.Consistent rules must be applied indealing with stairs and other special items.The data collection procedure isalso simple. Horizontal elementssuch as floors and roofs are measured from drawings in the sameway floor area is normally determined. While the area of verticalelements such as walls and partitions can sometimes be taken fromelevation or section drawings, experience has shown it is more convenient to use plan drawings for allmeasurements. The total combinedlength of partitions and walls istaken from the plan and multipliedby their height.Minutes to Determine EnclosureThe use of a dial type "linometer"or "plan-measure" is found mostefficient for this purpose, beingsufficiently accurate and muchfaster than either "scaling" or thetabulating of dimensions. Withstandard procedures and a minimum of practice, the amount ofbuilding enclosure represented byany plan drawn to scale, regardlessof its sketchiness or refinement, canbe determined almost in a matter ofminutes.Each scheme study, as well aslater plan studies of all design projects, should be measured for comparison. A standard form should beused for recording the information.In general, it will be found usefulto record the data by floors, usinga summary form to consolidate thefigures for the entire structure. Partition, wall, floor and roof totalsshould be tabulated separately sothat maximum use can be made ofthe data for additional estimatingand analytic purposes.

The enclosure quantity, and combinations of this with other building quantities, provide interestingopportunities for advantageous design study that architects tryingthese systems will come to appreciate.For enclosure to serve the purpose of cost projection effectively,the user must understand certainthings about the nature of the quantity itself. He must also agree tocertain rules. For example, if it is tobe granted that building costs do, i nfact, vary somewhat directly withthe amount of enclosure area, thefollowing must also be accepted:1. Building cost (C) is the totalof all costs of construction chargeable to the space-enclosing structure itself, including fixed mechanical and electrical equipment, butspecifically excluding such itemsas land costs, site improvementcosts, owner's administrative expenses, furniture and other costsnot clearly related to enclosure.2. Enclosure (E) is the total quantity of all defining elements of thestructure as described above, measured in square feet. Items of enclosure include walls, partitions, floors,roof. Columns, piers, stairs, railing,stacks and similar integral items ofconstruction should also be i n cluded, provided consistent methods of measurement and calculation of equivalent quantities areused.3. The enclosure unit cost (c] is thequotient resulting from the divisionof the total related building costs(C) by the total quantity of enclosure (E) or: c = C.E4. A l l units of enclosure are assumed to have the same value, i.e.,a square foot of partition is taken torepresent the same cost as a squarefoot of roof, exterior wall, parapetor balcony.Compensating for PartitionsIt may be noted that partitions,for example, ordinarily cost lessper unit to construct than exteriorwalls. In the overall sense, this difference is largely compensated forby the fact that building cost (C]represents all construction components, including mechanical andelectrical work. It will be observedthat a building subdivided intosmall spaces by partitions, eventhough the partitions be of relatively inexpensive construction, requires more electrical outlets andswitches, more doors and hardware, more heating and ventilatingcontrols and outlets, etc. than doesan unsubdivided space. These extracosts are assumed to be chargeableAIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

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to partition work, thus tending to

equalize the unit construction cost.The enclosure unit cost of awarehouse w i l l be closer to the enclosure cost of an apartment building than the respective costs persquare foot of floor area of the twobuilding types, as noted before. Theprobable reason is that the primarydifference in the latter is affectedmore by amount of wall area perunit of floor area than by the actualconstruction cost of walls. A l though it may seem contradictory,it is on this basis that it is furtherassumed that such variations as doexist in the enclosure unit costs ofdifferent buildings tend to closelyrepresent the actual differences i nthe quality of construction.One could therefore expect to befar more correct in estimating theprobable cost of a hospital by theapplication of enclosure cost unitsderived from the analysis of a warehouse than by trying to adjust thefloor area unit costs of the warehouse for the same purpose. Underless exaggerated extremes of comparison, the architect can look forward to a broad range of interchangeability i n unit enclosurecosts among different buildingtypes and therefore extend the effects of his cost experience.To measure architectural elements having either nonplanar orcomplex forms, the architect mustuse his best judgment to arrive atreasonably equivalent quantities.Because the units and quantities ofenclosure will be found to haveother useful applications in designstudy i f kept reasonably close togeometric truth, factoring as ameans of determining equivalentquantities should be avoided. In estimating cost by the floor areamethod, the space i n basements orother unfinished sections is oftenequated to more expensive spaceby arbitrarily reducing the measured quantity.There is no need to resort to suchdevices when dealing with enclosure. A stair, f o r instance, can bereduced to a quantity of enclosuresimply by measuring the total areaof all treads, risers, landings andrailings. Treads and landings, ofcourse, are equal to the floor areaoccupied by the stairwell on eachfloor; riser area equals one-half the90

A I A JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

vertical cross section of the stairwell; railing area in a typical, equal

run stair tower approximatelyequals the area of a vertical planetaken longitudinally between thelandings.Free-standing piers or columnsare usually measured by verticalplanes running with the greatestwidth. Built-in cabinets or casework is sometimes measured as asecond wall. No interruption is recognized for windows, doorways orsimilar wall openings.Furred spaces, toilet partitionsand the like are open to question.However these may be regarded,the user of enclosure quantitiesmust, as noted before, follow consistent rules for his determinationsif the information derived is tohave widest application in hiswork. As the method's use becomesmore widespread, combined experience no doubt w i l l tend to establish universal rules and standardsof procedure which will, hopefully,enhance the interchangeability ofdata throughout the profession.Easily Related to Floor AreaIn addition to being a quick andeffective way to measure the quantity of construction and the probable cost represented by a design,the quantity of enclosure also canbe easily related to floor area, theother quantity so highly representative of primary building function.This provides the architect with aneven broader analytic tool, one thatwill dig even deeper at the beginning of design.Moreover, it is accomplishedwith little or no additional worksince, i f a proper tabulation is madeof the enclosure as taken from thedrawings, floor area can always beidentified as a separate item. Forthis purpose, relationship betweenthe two quantities is established bythe ratio (e) of floor area [A] to totalenclosure (E]: e E the numberAof enclosure units yielding one unitof floor space.Much can be learned about thegeneral geometric characteristicsas well as the economics of a building simply by knowing this ratio.Here again is a number that variesover a relatively small rangesosmall a range, in fact, that in theinterests of sensitivity, attentionshould be paid to at least the thirddecimal place. Almost all buildingshave enclosure ratios falling between 1.5 and 4.5. Most ordinarystructures w i l l actually fall between 1.75 and 3.75.To produce lower ratios requiresmultistory construction. A 20-story=

building 100 feet square i n plan,

having a story height of 10 feet, w i l lproduce a ratio of 1.45, i f it contains no interior partitions. Typical, reasonably efficient, high-riseapartment buildings usually haveenclosure ratios of from 1.8 to 2.2.Other kinds of residential buildings tend to have high enclosureratios. This seems to be due to theirhigh degree of interior space subdivision and the fact that the areaof their roofs is divided over lessfloor area. One-story houses thatare somewhat extended can be expected to have ratios of 4 to 4.5. Athree-story office building havingmedium to large interior spaceswould require a reasonably efficient configuration to produce anenclosure ratio of 2.75. If some degree of spatial freedom is due thearchitect, he should allow a ratio ofat least 3.0 to solve any importantproblem.Aside from being something ofan efficiency index and an aid ineconomic analysis, the floor areaenclosure ratio can be an aid tosome extent in projecting otherprobable quantitative effects of design variations. Determining thecost of a square foot of floor areaby multiplying the ratio by the estimated unit enclosure cost bringswith it the accuracy inherent in theenclosure method of estimating,thereby eliminating the irrationality associated with floor area estimating. If a program of design requirements establishes both thearea of floor desired and a construction cost limitation, the architect can easily test the reasonableness of the given budget bydetermining that the ratio requiredto produce unit enclosure costsconsistent with those for similarconstruction is feasible.For Accuracy and SimplicityHe can do this far more accurately and simply through the enclosure method. Another use thathas been made of this figure is i nthe projection, prior to conception,of certain geometric characteristicsof design schemes, thus establishing direction to the design effortwith commensurate savings i n trialand error work.The more the architect workswith enclosure quantities the morefamiliar he becomes with this mostsignificant property of buildings.As he develops a vocabulary of enclosure units costs, enclosure floorarea ratios etc., the more accuratelyand quickly he can predict the outcome of his various efforts. In thelong run, this w i l l not be limited topredicting costs alone.

Design of the Luminous Environment 3

Selecting Incandescent Downlighting

BY SEYMOUR EVANSInitially it was established thatlighting design can be analyzed atthree basic levels: the functional,the structural and the behavioral.Articles 1 and 2 discussed the behavioral aspects, i.e., the interweaving of energy-producing sources(lighting fixtures), energy-interpreting sources (man] and energy-reflecting sources (architecture). Oneof the important points made earlier is that the proper use of auniform-aperture lighting system,within an architecturally disciplined grid, can invoke surprise andatmosphere instead of blandnessand monotony.The basis of this system is astructural vocabulary of equipmentwhich w i l l be presented in this and

the following article, the former to

be concerned with incandescentdownlighting and the latter w i t h incandescent wall washing. A l l thefixtures included f u l f i l l the criteriaof low brightness and high e f f i ciency while performing many different functions. It is hoped thatthey will become a standard reference for selecting concealed-sourceincandescent equipment.While the drawings show fixtures of two apertures7 h and 10inchesthe uniformity of the system may vary according to the manufacturer chosen or the group oflamps used. These provide systemsin which by the use of lamps withvarying beam characteristics, it ispossible to preselect and target themood within a given space, still

f f f f f f j i

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within the framework of a coherent

ceiling layout.Not all of these fixtures are presently available from manufacturers'catalogs, but all have been made atone time or another to the author'sspecifications. Professional insistence upon uniform apertures w i l linsure the required fixtures, albeitsomewhat reluctantly at first. Skillin intermixing them within the gridand between color-filtered and noncolor-filtered light will result inlighting that produces both the required amount of illumination forvision and the desired atmospherefor the human environment.The drawings give both specification references and the floor patterns of emitted light for all thefixtures.

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IBS

MIIHSKMLI MOUNTING

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Architects Perkins and Will achieve an awe-inspiring architectural effect with the use of BUCKINGHAMJLATE PANELS from Virginia on the magnificent United States Gypsum Building. The natural character)f the multi-million year old slate panels reflect the beauties and wonders of this earth while the structure,i marvel of modern building technology, soars into space above Chicago. Like brush strokes across anirtist's canvas, the natural cleft texture of the BUCKINGHAM SLATE adds dimension and humanistic feeing to the whole city area and the building becomes a timeless work of art. Catalogs on BUCKINGHAM5LATE panels, flooring and roofing in Sweet's and Stone Catalogs. Listed in AIA Building Products Register.BUCKINGHAM-VIRGINIA

SLATE

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Reshaping Public Housing

An analysis for the AIA JOURNALby Robert J. Lewis, reporter for theWashington Star who writes extensively on urban affairs.From a small beginning in theRoosevelt New Deal, public housing has expanded to nearly 800,000units in 2,600 US towns and cities.The federal subsidy to reduce rentsalone has reached an annual rateof $250 million. Yet public housing has never achieved real popularity as a government programand is today probably less popular with families eligible for itsbenefits than ever. This many ofits defenders sadly report.The answer is not to junk the30-year-old program but to beginrefashioning it on a massive scaleunder far-reaching new legislationallowing prodigious changes in itsimage, its character and its socialeffects, concluded members of theNational Association of Housingand Redevelopment Officials at anational forum in Washington.The four-day February sessionsconstituted a new high in self-criticism for NAHROan organizationof 2,000 local public agencies and6,000 state and local housing andurban renewal employees. The dayand-night program and discussionalso appeared to foretell policychanges that will place the organization more firmly than ever onthe side of a broad program of federally sponsored social planning toback up government-aided housingand urban renewal ventures.Traditional projects and traditional methods were analyzed andfound wanting by numerous speakers. A forthright comment fromElizabeth Wood, former Chicago

Housing Authority executive director and now a Housing and Urban

Development official, noted thatpublic housing developments appeal to fewer and fewer "normalfamilies.""Projects appear to be unsuccessful in attracting and retaining asound proportion of normal families whose earnings fall in the upperrange of the low-income market,"Miss Wood said. She explainedthat as a HUD official she had carried out a six-month study of thepublic housing program " i n respectto the new social climate and itsgoals" and added:"There has been a steady i n crease in the proportion of occupancy by families whose incomesare derived, in whole or in part,from public assistance and publicbenefits, predominantly broken orelderly families. These householdsnot only have the lowest incomesof all in the public housing marketbut require the most service."Such households constitute 51percent of all occupants of publichousing. In many individual projects, the proportion runs muchhigher. They clearly do not attractenough of the normal, mobile families essential to the creation ofhealthy social communities."Besides harmful social consequences, said the acting chief ofHUD's Community Service Branch,the trend has reduced income,raised operating costs and forcedlocal authorities to cut down onmaintenance and use higher subsidy amounts."This trend raises the questionof national social policy as well asfiscal policy," Miss Wood went onto say. " I f the trend continues, two

things w i l l probably happen: The

program need for subsidy w i l l i n crease, and the projects w i l l become social and economic ghettos."Though not emphasized at theconference, the large postwar migration of Negroes to the cities hasintensified public housing problems and raised questions aboutthe "project" approach. In Washington, for example, low-incomefamilies eligible for public housingoccupancy are divided roughly onthe basis of 70 percent nonwhiteand 30 percent white, while actualtenants number 98 percent nonwhite, studies have shown.Such preponderantly high ratiosof nonwhite occupancy encouragedthe administration to seek achanged social and racial balance.Successful sponsorship of 1965 legislation authorizing purchase andlease of 100,000 units of "scatteredsite" public housing over a fouryear period is being relied on tohelp make public housing more acceptable.Under this legislation, 40,000unitsnew or existingare to beleased by public housing authorities from private owners. The remaining 60,000 units to be subsidized are for purchase and rehabilitation from the existing privatehousing supply.Besides this programdesignedto spread public housing to widelyscattered neighborhoods in smallgroups and as single housesthelegislation authorized about 140,000 conventional project units forthe four-year fiscal period endingin 1969a yearly authorization farhigher than any in the past.These and other provisions ofnew housing legislationencompassing such steps as rent-supplement housing, the Model Citiesscheme of harnessing social actionprograms to urban renewal on a"big neighborhood" basis, "Turnkey" public housing, 221 (d) 3 moderate-income housing linked topublic housing in "combinationprojects" and a host of other programs have begun to revolutionizefederal housing assistance and arebeing counted on to transform further the public housing image.Notinglegislative changes againstthe background of the past, GeorgeT. Rockrise, FAIA, adviser on design to HUD Secretary Robert C.Weaver, told the 800 delegates heContinued

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expected public housing w i l l "play

a vital part" in the future modelcommunity.But, he said, such projects w i l lneed "social insights that w i l l directly influence" design and management."To stop the flight to suburbiaand to stop the intensification andspread of the slum and the ghetto,overall housing planning at all economic and social levels must become an integral part of comprehensive planning for the city,"Rockrise added.Rockrise praised NAHRO forcollaborating with the A I A andhousing officials on a "PacemakerProject" now undergoing study byHUD. "The proposed combinationof sociological, environmental andtechnological skills to produce acarefully researched and programmed mix of low- and middleincome housing complexes clearlyexemplifies the multidiscipline approach we must employ," he said." W i t h assignable housing unitsas a basis," he explained, "Pacemaker proposes to involve, to thefullest extent possible, other federal assistance programs of open

space, urban beautification, neighborhood facilities and social services, coupled with local resourcesin a small number of selected citieswhich indicate the highest levels ofcooperation."Rockrise said that across thecountry "we are faced with violentobjections to public housing appearing in established neighborhoods." He said the objections werenot surprising."No wonder," he explained,"until we learn to program anddesign more human-looking neighborhoods, neither the tenants northe neighbors are happy with theefforts."Add to this the pressures ofconventional economics and weput housing projects end to endresult, superghetto Chicago or St.Louis rather than early Cincinnati'sEnglish Village or San Francisco'sHolly Park or, more lately, Seattle'sJefferson Terrace."Keynoting the forum was 37year-old Harvey G. Cox Jr., authorof The SecularCity,the avantegarde book calling for a new "theology of political and socialchange," and a Harvard divinityschool associate professor ofchurch and society.

Cox said failure of the nation to

deal with economic and socialproblems has led to a "crisis of oursociety." He assailed the nation's$73 billion defense budget as "justtoo much" and called for a "reordering of national priorities."In one of the highlights of theforum, Vice President Hubert Humphrey urged national support forthe Model Cities and antipovertyprograms.The Vice President, pointing outthat President Johnson had askedCongress for $412 million to financethe Model Cities renewal program,called on delegates to help persuade Congress to appropriate thefull amount."The President put every dollarin his budget that was authorized,but what did I hear from leaders inCongress on the AppropriationsCommittee?" Humphrey asked." I heard 'Cut it out. Cut it all out.Cut out those spending programs.'"Urging delegates to beware ofwhat he called "pie-in-the-sky"schemes to finance urban aid thatranged in cost from $250 billion to"trillions" of dollars, the Vice President warned that appropriationsin these dimensions are "just notgoing to happen."

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BooksDivision Street: America. StudsTerkel. New York: Pantheon, 1967.381 pp. $5.95.This is a collection of 70 profilesof people, a spectrum ranging froma poor Appalachian migrant to thevice president of an auto corporation. These people have one common attribute, however: They alllive in a cityChicago.The "characters" in this book, although ordinary, are not unperceptive to the deficiencies of today'surban environment. Their observations in many cases parallel thosemade by the authoritative individuals who convened at the roundtable on cities (see the feature presentation in this issue of the A I AJOURNAL): inadequate space forvehicles; racial discrimination inemployment, housing and education; limited recreational facilitiesfor children and teen-agers; urbanrenewal which is at once poorlyplanned and destructive to thecity's heritage; and alienationperson to person, person to city.Through interviews that the author has transcribed, people voicetheir opinions and fears about theirenvironment. For some, the greatest concern is the bomb or the civilrights movement, the Vietnam war,poverty, education or capitalism.But for all the spokesmen, the problems of the city pervade and oftendirect the currents of their lives.We recognize anew that architecture, for one thing, cannotmerely be a matter of utility; itmust be a social communication aswell. The worth of a city like Chicago lies in the well-being of itspeople, a well-being which architecture affects in a significant way.We hear a retired musician complain that the glass and steel highriscs "make the city look cold";and that the resultant expansiongives the impression that peopleare "moving to get away frompeople."Urban renewal, too, elicits various reactions: feelings of lossand irreparable change, impersonality. One young man said aboutrenewal: " I t is based on the mistaken premise that you can createa home environment i f you givepeople all the 'sanitary' necessities." Disenchantment arises concerning the ethics of "progress":An old tavern owner tells how renewal is causing the real Chicagoto be buried, and an architect feelsC o n t i n u e d on page 312

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give really serious thought to the

ugliness surrounding us and toerasing the impediments to a beautiful environment.Decorative Designs in MexicanHomes. Verna Cook Shipway andWarren Shipway. N e w York; A r chitectural Book Publishing, 1966.249 pp. $12.95.This is the fifth book by the Shipways on Mexican homes, and it isunderstandable if it does not havequite the substance of its predecessors. There are 250 photographs,drawings and plans covering a variety of subjects, among them studiesof balconies, fireplaces, stairways,doors, tables, pottery, sunshades,beds, ceilings, hardware, bars.

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1250 to 1400. John White. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1966. 449 pp.$25.This addition to the distinguished series, the Pelican Historyof Art, is concerned with one ofthe richest periods in art history.White, a specialist on the Italian14th and 15th centuries, gives equalattention to painting, sculpture andarchitecture. Primary emphasis isplaced upon Tuscany, but the artworks of other sections of Italy areincluded too. There are 192 platesas well as other illustrative materials, plans and diagrams.

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NewFurniture;NeueMobel;Muebles Modernos. Edited byGerd Hatje and K a r l Kaspar. NewYork; Praeger, 1966. 152 pp. $12.50.T h i s is another of the volumeson furniture design, taking its placewith the seven that have precededit. The editors commend one groupof firms who courageously havegone against the prevailing tendency to fancy shapes and havereproduced the new classic chairsof Breuer, Le Corbusier and Miesvan der Rohe. T h e y also give duecredit to George Nelson for hisnew conception in office furniture.The general picture, however, infurniture design is what the editorscall "rather blurred at present."Landscape Vocabulary. WarnerL . Marsh. Los Angeles: MiramarPublishing. 1964. 320 pp. $8.50.This is a useful compilation ofterms employed by the landscapearchitect. It does not, in general,include botanical or horticulturalterms, or names of plants, but doescover a wide range of words fromsuch disciplines as geology, ecology, engineering, etc.

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JOURNAL/APRIL 1967 121

resolve joining with the three horizontal ground planes. It is not basedupon a Mercator projection, whichis the Cartesian projection of spherical arcs of latitude and longitudeon a flat plane. The plastic panelsare all hexagons, so there is no geometric strategy required to efficiently use rectangular panels.PETER FLOYDR. BuckminsterFuller/FullerEr Sadao, Inc./Geometrics,Inc.Cambridge, Mass.

LettersE x p o & the U S PavilionEDITOR:We have read Mr. Diamond's article in the February issue withgreat interest as to his appraisal ofthe quality of site planning and thedesign of some of the pavilions forExpo 67.In respect to the facts, however(and in the interest of maintainingthe high standard of accuracy thatshould be the working principle ofevery professional journal), wemust correct the author's text inregard to his paragraph on the U SPavilion.The architects for that buildingare R. Buckminster Fuller/Fuller &Sadao, Inc./Geometrics, Inc. C a m bridge Seven Associates are thearchitects and designers of the interior platforms and exhibits, andare not associated in the design ofthe U S Pavilion itself.The geodesic bubble is 200 feethigh, constructed from slotted andwelded steel pipe, not from crimpedsteel rods. The structural systembelow the Equator is a geodesic system modified with lesser circles to

NEW!

W E A R

Housing & Human Needs

EDITOR:After reading the article "UniqueImpotence or Universal Impact" inJanuary, I have the impression thatthe "Brave New World" has already arrived, but w e are copingwith it instantly, immediately, totally, in a meaningful, ongoing andviable fashion. We call it by another name.T h u s one is able to proceed fromthe hypothesis that the professionneeds "a detailed understanding ofthe range of human needs and howto meet them through environmental design" to the concept that we"must think of housing as a replaceable consumer product"; to the suggestion that, as a result of this andother concepts, "architects will devote less time to 'one-shot' solu-

tions and more to analyzing human

needs in relation to the environmental factors"; and the furthersuggestion that "mass - producedstandardized products often leavemore room for personal choice andexpression than architect-designedhouses." W h y ?Do automobile manufacturersconsider human needs in relationto the environment? A n d is it perhaps partly because the auto is areplaceable consumer product thatthey do not?Is there, indeed, perhaps something incompatible between the fullrange of human needs includingthose of the spirit and housing considered as "a replaceable consumerproduct . . . built to satisfy all thescientifically determined physical,psychological and esthetic requirements of consumers"?It is an incompatibility w h i c h canonly be resolved in the jargon of"double-speak" which posits thevery theories within which it justifies itselfas with the concludingparagraph of the article, quotedabove, which appears in the form"mass-produced standardized products should [writer's italics] permitroom for personal choice and expression."D . B. A L E X A N D E R , A I ASan Francisco, Calif.EDITOR:"Forty-eight Hours in Harlem"[Jan.] describes meticulously recentrehabilitation experiments in NewYork City.There is a discrepancy, however.The caption for the photographsshowing the prefabricated kitchenbath unit being lowered into a prepared slot cut through all floors(pp. 61, 62) refers to Harlem although the text rightfully notes thatthis experiment is on East FifthStreet.True, East Harlem is spreading,but it has not yet engulfed NewYork's East Side that far.E L I S A B E T H COIT, FAIAN e w York, N.Y.

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127

BRAND NEW

Next MonthThe New Architect: "New demandsand needs, and new technologies,are making the new architect," saysInstitute President Charles M. NesJr., FAIA. And so the 1967 convention will provide an in-depth examination of this new professional,analyzing where he stands todayand pointing out some of the waysin which he may prepare for thefuture.A Twofold Approach: May's Official Convention Guide likewisewill look at the future of the profession, with three architects delving into practice itself and with aneducator projecting the changingrole of the architectural schools.What these professionals have tosay should be of interest to thestay-at-homers as well as theconventioners.New York, New York: " A city ofconstantly accelerating, almost unbelievable change; of enormous andtroublesome energy; symbol ofmany of the hopes and accomplishments of the New World: NewYorkthe perfect setting for a convention whose theme is "The NewArchitect," to again quote President Nes. Thus the second part ofthe May editorial package^will focus on the host city itself.The Gold Medalist: One of NewYork's own w i l l receive the Institute's highest honor this year. Astudy of the projects of Wallace K.Harrison, FAIA, will review "hisdemonstrated ability to lead a teamin producing significant architectural works of high quality over aperiod of 30 years."AH Around the Town: Several other articles will examine New Yorkfrom different points of view. Onewill discuss the program intendedto preserve the city's architecturalheritage; another w i l l look at contemporary buildings in light ofthe controversial Bard Awards; athird will explore Mayor Lindsay's"fun city" in a visitor's guide including some offbeat activities.P H O T O C R E D I T S : Milwaukee Journalp.14(Sister Mary Remy Revor); Maude Dorrp.14 (Richard K e l l y ) ; Walter D a m n (portraits).New Y o r k Convention and Visitors Bureau,Hank Tenny, J. Alexander, General ElectricCo., United Press International, Jim Sheppard,Balthazar Korab, John Dennison, New YorkDepartment ofCityPlanning,TidymanStudios, Orville G . Lee, A I A p p . 50-80.

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AIA JOURNAL/APRIL 1967

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